Packing a Simple Picnic for Seaside Walks

Why Simple Beats Elaborate on the Suffolk Coast

There is a certain kind of walk on the Suffolk coast that asks very little of you. You park at the end of a lane, follow the path through the gorse and the marram grass, and within ten minutes the only sounds are shingle shifting underfoot and the sea doing its slow, patient work. Southwold, Walberswick, Dunwich, Orford, the long empty reach towards Shingle Street — this is a coastline that rewards a modest picnic far more than a grand one. A flask and a sandwich eaten with your back against a breakwater will taste better than anything carried in and laid out with ceremony.

The trick is to pack as though you might be walking for two hours and sitting for one, with no shop for miles and a wind that arrives without warning.

Choose Containers That Earn Their Place

Everything in the bag should do a job. A few sturdy pieces of kit will serve you for years and make the difference between a picnic that travels well and one that arrives as a soggy disappointment.

• A wide-necked vacuum flask — better than a narrow one, because you can get a spoon in. Fill it with hot tea, coffee or soup. Pour boiling water in first, let it stand for two minutes, tip it out, then fill properly. The flask will hold its heat far longer.
• Clip-lidded boxes in two or three sizes, the sort with a rubber seal. They stack, they don't leak, and they double as plates when you're sitting on shingle.
• A small tin for anything fragile — biscuits, slices of cake, boiled eggs.
• Enamel or stainless mugs rather than paper. They don't buckle when the flask is hot.
• A light rug with a waterproof backing, or a wool blanket with a bin bag underneath. Shingle is unforgiving, and dew sits late on the grass on autumn mornings.
• A cloth bag for rubbish, plus a spare for anything you didn't finish.

If you're walking far, weigh the bag before you leave. A full flask is heavy. On a long stretch towards Covehithe or Kessingland, consider a smaller flask of tea and a bottle of water alongside.

What Actually Tastes Good Outdoors

The best picnic food is food that improves with sea air, which rules out anything fussy. Sandwiches made on thick-cut bread, generously buttered — butter is a waterproof layer, and it stops the filling soaking through. Cheese and chutney, ham and mustard, cold roast chicken with salt and pepper. A pork pie cut into wedges. Sausage rolls. Boiled eggs with a twist of salt in a screw of paper.

Keep tomato and cucumber separate from the bread until you eat. Both weep, and a sandwich that has spent three hours in a warm bag is a sad thing. A small pot of sliced cucumber, dressed with a little oil and vinegar at the last minute, is far better than one made in advance.

For fruit, choose things that travel: apples, pears, a bag of cherries in season, plums. Bananas bruise badly. Oranges are lovely but leave peel to carry home, though a small bag solves that neatly.

Something sweet that doesn't melt, too. Flapjack, shortbread, ginger cake, a handful of oat biscuits. Chocolate is a mistake in July and a gamble even in October when it's sitting next to a warm flask.

Packing So It Travels Well

Assemble in layers. Heavy items — flask, bottles — at the bottom of the bag, close to your back if it's a rucksack. Soft items on top. Wrap the flask in a tea towel; it protects the flask and gives you something to wipe hands with afterwards. Put the rug on the very top, or strapped outside where it won't crush the sandwiches.

Waxed paper is worth the small expense. It wraps a sandwich neatly, breathes a little, and can be folded flat and taken home to use again. Reusable sandwich wraps do the same job. Avoid cling film on a windy beach; it has a real talent for escaping.

Take a small folding knife, a couple of spoons and a bin bag. That is the whole kit. Anything more and you're moving house rather than going for a walk.

Sitting, Eating, and the Ordinary Pleasure of It

Find a spot out of the wind. On shingle beaches the best shelter is often at the top of the bank, where the sea is below you and the marram grass bends and hisses. Sit on the rug with the flask between you. Pour the tea and let it cool a moment. There is no hurry and nothing to do but watch the tide.

A windbreak helps if you're stopping for any length of time, particularly on the open stretches. So does a jumper, even in August — the sea frets come in fast along this coast, and a warm afternoon can turn grey and cool within twenty minutes. Stout shoes are kinder on shingle than trainers, and if you're crossing the marshes near Walberswick, check the tide times before you set out.

Leave Nothing Behind

The Suffolk coast is fragile in ways that aren't always obvious. Little terns nest on the shingle in summer, almost invisible against the stones, and a careless foot or an inquisitive dog can do real harm. Keep to the paths where they're marked, keep dogs close on the reserves and under control around birds, and close any gate you open.

Take everything home with you, including apple cores, eggshells and fruit peel. It isn't a small thing to leave behind; it draws in gulls and rats, and it spoils the very emptiness you came for. Don't feed the gulls, however persuasive they are. Shake out the rug, fold it, and check the spot where you sat looks exactly as it did when you arrived.

Then walk back the long way, if there's time. That is the whole pleasure of it — a flask, a rug, a bit of bread and cheese, and a coast that asks nothing more of you than to leave it as you found it.