Day: 200 2/4/99 Southwold to Kessingland

Weather:  Mild & overcast

Distance:  11km (6.8 miles)    Total Distance:   2599 miles

This was to be an Easter family holiday staying in Great Yarmouth Youth Hostel.  Gareth woke at 7.00am due to a loud clap of thunder outside.  We left Coventry by 10.30am in rain but fortunately by the time we got to Southwold it had stopped raining and was a mild but overcast day.  I took the A14 route via Ipswich for the last time.  Although this was probably a long way around I knew it was a fast road.  We drove though the village and down to the quay and had our sandwiches and a mug of tea and chocolate flapjack from the kiosk.  I was walking by 1.15pm. 

Margaret went into Southwold with the boys and was impressed with the shops etc. She also took them to the beach.  I set off along the beach and then up onto the promenade by the smartest beach huts I had ever seen, all well maintained and all with their own names. 

Once the promenade ended I took to the beach again and kept down by the tide line on the firm sand.  There were not too many people around outside Southwold,  just the occasional sea angler and I had to be careful not to walk across their lines.  I watched the low crumbling cliffs that are a feature of this area.  I stopped for a rest on a tree trunk and a drink from my rucksack near a lake some three-quarters of the way along.

I arrived at Kessingland just some five minutes early but there was no sign of the family.  I figured that the café that was on the bend in the road just as it came down to the sea was the best place to meet her so ordered a coffee and drank it outside.  Margaret and the boys soon arrived and joined me at the café. We played on the promenade for a while and then headed for Great Yarmouth. 

We had a warm welcome from the warden Duncan to this town house in a relatively quiet part of town.  We had a dorm to ourselves but the top bunks did not have any side bars so we pushed them together so Margaret felt safer.  One thing about the dorm was that it was hot which meant we slept with the windows open – but that made I very noisy!