Hurst shrine

It was looking like a lovely evening, so I decided on a coastal walk and chose Hurst Spit, a mile and a half walk along a pebble spit protruding into the Solent, not the easiest walking, but that's easily made up for my the views and the air. The spit curves gracefully round on itself, so that if you walk right to the furthest point, way past the castle, you look over sheltered salt marsh towards the route you'd taken out. It's a spot which depending on the weather can solicit an array of differing emotions, when stormy it's decidedly isolated and frightening, when misty it's weird and haunting, and when it's sunny or calm it's tranquil. The spit's ever changing, you can see that by the piers that are now inland or who's remnants lay inaccessible off shore. I was shocked to find the water lapping at the walls on the Solent facing side of Hurst's Victorian fortress, I'd not seen that before (that's not to say it doesn't happen, just it was new to me). Tucked away in one of the bricked up firing embrasures on the Solent side, a shrine of a type has developed. I don't think it's a shrine to anything or anyone in particular, as there's all sorts of themes, various dates, styles and purposes. I took a while to explore the deposits, and wondered how and why. Then turning the corner I wandered back under a peach/salmon pink coloured sky. Worth the pebbly walk, pebbles of course being just the worst.