Walton-on-the-Naze Circular walk

This is a short and easy but varied costal walk is as much a day out as a walk. It starts in a faded grandeur Victorian Seaside resort with a long pier. But its real star is the Naze - a headland with fine views and red cliffs of London Clay subject to rapid erosion and a fossil hunters paridise after stormy weather.

After leaving the pier, arcades, beach huts, some nice Victorian architecture, and good swimming beaches behind, you quickly reaches the Naze - a wild headland with good sea views. There is a small tower with a tea room, which is visible for much of the walk as a landmark. Due to the erosion on the headland - by up to 2m a year - walking along the beach is quite interesting, and can be rich in fossils after storms. After the Naze is a sand spit out to Stone point (closed May 1st to July 31st in case there are any ground nesting birds)

The Naze and spit protect the backwaters, shallow waters with salt flat islands, which inspired Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books. The return route is either along the beach, or optionally around a nature reserve's sea wall overlooking the backwayers (good for birdwatching, but a bit hard going in summer as overgrown)

Depending upon tide times, walk out along the cliffs, and back along the beach or visa-versa

After returning to the town centre, head out to the end of the pier. For a longer walk, head south along the coast and beach huts to Frinton (station)

Your opinion of this walk will be in part how you see Walton-on-the-Naze - faded grandeur, or tacky amusments which may be busy and noisy during summer evenings. In winter, the town would be very quiet, the amusements closed, and beaches empty

• If Stone Point is closed, or the tides are wrong, walk around the nature reserve - a bit overgrown in summer, with views from the seawall over the backwaters

7.6 miles / 12.2km (5.6 miles for the tide-safe seawall option)

1 out of 10 (3 in summer if you walk around the nature reserve)

Trains from London Liverpool Street, hourly, about 1hr 30, usually changing at Thorpe-le-Soken (where the line splits to Clacton-on-Sea) for a waiting train. Check the return trains times, as they aren't as regular in the evenings

Take the train closest to 10:00

The walk out along the spit to Stone Point hasn't yet been walk checked.

The spit out to Stone Point is part of Hamford Water National Nature Reserve. "There is restricted access to this area (including the beach below the high tide mark) between 1st May and 1st Aug, during the Little Tern’s (a birds's) breeding season ... There are proposals to formalise a permissive footpath with Tendring District Council in this area. It is proposed that the route will include interpretation boards explaining that an area of the path will be closed during the Little Tern’s breeding season."

The spit is managed by a local Sailing Club, who welcome visitors, but in order to keep "unfettered access", urges them to "take care not do anything that either disturbs the wildlife or destroys plants and vegetation." Its a popular mooring for small boats in the Summer.

"In Arthur Ransome's ( 'Swallow and Amazons') book 'Secret Water', the children name [it] Flint Island... Stone Age flints have occasionally been found here... Stone Marsh is surrounded by gentle slopes of soft sand and mud, and small boats often use this as a temporary mooring" -- Essex Coastline: Then and Now By M.P.B. Fautley, J.H. Garon

See the warnings above about Nature England's obsession with the Little Tern's breeding season. In other reserves, a roped off path guides visitors, and dogs on leads, along a specific route. Birds soon learn to avoid a 50 ft strip either side of the path, and everyone's happy.

• Walton-on-the-Naze - history and nature
• Naze Tower - £2.50 to climb, has a free tea room, open April to October
• The Nazeman - Geology and Nature - a fan site!
• Fossils, also see: [2] and [3]
• A similar walk on the BBC website around the John Weston Nature Reserve
• John Weston Reserve - wetlands, good for birdwatching
• Hamford Water NNR - the Naze backwaters, including Stone Point (not much information - the Nature England pages about Hamford Water no longer exist)