Morecambe Bay

The bay holds around three hundred and ten square kilometres of sand and mud exposed at low water, the largest continuous intertidal area in Britain, and it feeds enormous numbers of wading birds: over two hundred thousand birds winter here, including oystercatchers, knot and dunlin in flocks that turn in the air together. The sands are dangerous in a way that is hard to convey: the tide advances across flat ground faster than walking pace, channels shift, and quicksand forms and moves. A Queen's Guide to the Sands has been appointed since the sixteenth century to lead crossings, a post still filled and still paid a nominal salary, and the guided walk from Arnside across to Kents Bank is done in groups of hundreds in summer. The Arnside bore runs up the Kent estuary on big tides.

What you actually see

• The intertidal flats - three hundred square kilometres exposed at low water.
• The wader flocks - over two hundred thousand birds wintering on the sands.
• The guided crossing - a walk led by the Queen's Guide, a post held since the 1500s.
• The Arnside bore - a tidal wave running up the estuary on the largest tides.

When to go

May to September for the guided crossings, which run on set dates governed by tides; winter for the wader spectacle, which is at its best on a rising tide at Hest Bank. The bore is predictable from tide tables.

Honest expectations

Walking on the sands without a guide is genuinely lethal and people have died doing it, including a cockling party in 2004; channels and quicksand are not visible in advance. Crossings are cancelled at short notice for conditions. The bay is exposed with no shelter.

Nearby

Arnside Knott and the Kent estuary lie north; Lancaster and Heysham are south.