A recent opportunity led to me exploring Blast Beach in Seaham, County Durham.

The beach was once so polluted from local mining operations that it featured as a desolate landscape in the sci-fi film Aliens 3. After a monumental clean up it can now be enjoyed as a ‘proper’ beach again.

Blast Beach 1

The nearby free parking leads across the top of the cliff and down a very steep and sometimes slippery path (the dip in the cliff face, photo above) The access I’ve found so far is only suitable for the able bodied.

A wander along the shore line can reveal some interesting items:

Londonderry brick

This well eroded brick still clearly shows its place of origin. You can only speculate as to how this turned up on the North East Coast of England.

Layers

The above photo shows remnants of the deposits on the beach in different coloured layers.

Arch

There could be some interesting opportunities for long exposure photography but it will require some return trips. And not leaving the tripod in the car.

A short walk (and even shorter drive) will find you in Seaham. There is a harbour and lovely Promenade with numerous places to stop and have a coffee or meal. Even better when we don’t have to worry about the dreaded C word. I’ll do a separate post on Seaham in the new year.

Being on the North East coast at this time of year (actually anytime of year) I would advise appropriate clothing.

There can be a quite bracing wind 🙂