Arnside bore...

I called in at Arnside yesterday, where the River Kent meets Morecambe Bay. I overheard people saying that the famous Arnside Bore was due about mid-day, so I stayed around (having seen it on just one other occasion). Anyone who expects a thirty-foot tsunami - the kind you see in disaster films - will be disappointed. It’s not so much a ‘wall’ of water, as a ‘thin white line’ of water which extends across the width of the estuary. It’s moving quickly - local folklore suggesting it can outrun a galloping horse - and half a dozen canoists were coming in on the tide. They weren’t ‘riding the wave’, as a surfer might, but were just being pulled along by the tide

It may have been a minute between sighting the bore at distance to seeing it reach Arnside’s abbreviated pier, where I was standing. The estuary filled up very quickly, and the wading birds disappeared, with muddy water churning in the channels below. So even if the bore wasn’t spectacular, it was interesting to see the speed at which the Kent Estuary filled up with water. “Worth seeing”, as Samuel Johnson pronounced upon the Giant’s Causeway, “but not worth going to see”.

I had my camera, but didn’t use it; the results wouldn’t have been very impressive. I got a pic of two cyclists instead, and continued my tour…