A road bridge from Langstone carries traffic onto Hayling Island at its northern end, or you can cross on foot by a small ferry from Eastney in Portsmouth, over the harbour mouth. The island sits low and flat between Langstone Harbour and Chichester Harbour on the Hampshire coast, with long shingle beaches down its eastern side; Peter Chilvers is credited with rigging one of the first sailboards here as a boy in 1958, and windsurfers and kitesurfers still use the beaches today. At the north-west corner, the old Oysterbeds, fished for oysters since Roman times and restored as a reserve in the 1990s, are where terns and oystercatchers breed in summer and brent geese gather over winter. The Hayling Billy Trail follows the old railway line that once ran to Havant, a walking and cycling path along the shore towards Chichester Harbour at the island’s eastern end.
Photo Alexander Andrews / Unsplash
