Weather: Overcast in morning with a light breeze, sunny in afternoon
Distance: 25 km (15.5
miles) Total Distance:
2656 miles
The
kitchen in the Youth Hostel was busy for breakfast and I got talking to another
couple of walkers who the previous day had also walked near my car parked in
Horsey Corner.
Mundesley
at first looked a difficult place to park without paying but fortunately it was
so early that there was nobody around and I found a side street without any
cars on it so parked for free all day.
I
headed down to the sea and walked along the beach all the way to Cromer. There
was no path along the top. The sand was
pretty firm and it was not bad walking.
The cliffs were pretty high in places made of earth and lots of cliff
falls were evident. These looked to be more due to water coming down the cliffs
rather than damage by the waves themselves.
I watched a flock of swallows nesting in holes in the earth in the
cliffs. The beach was very clean; hardly any rubbish to be seen at all.
The cliffs were protected virtually all the way by angled wooden sea
defences about 10 feet tall and there to break the waves rather than stop the water
all together.
It
took about two and a quarter hours to get to Cromer and I entered the town on
the promenade past fishing boats and tractors used to haul them out of the
sea. I chose the first café I saw which
turned out to be wise choice. Called the
Rocket House Café it served wonderful cakes.
It advertised blueberry scones whose recipe had been taken and used in a
book by Anneka Rice. I chose a giant
piece of chocolate fudge cake and mug of coffee (£2.70) that seemed to amuse
the owner – a jovial character.
For
the second half of the day I came up onto the cliff tops and what made it even
better was that the sun came out. Past a
number of caravan sites and other open green areas and then up a hill on the
east side of Sherringham. I stopped for
a rest in the sun and lay on a bench to take off my boots and dry the sweat
from my socks. The bench had a plaque on
it dedicated to I guess a local lady Pat McDowell with a good verse on it:
Life is mostly froth and bubble
Two
things stand like stone
Kindness
in another’s trouble
Courage
in your own.
I came down the hill into Sherringham. The town surprised me because it did not have a
harbour, just a landing slip. I guess this is why the main road runs
perpendicular to the sea. I had thought
originally that I would stop at Sherringham but it was such a great day now
that I decided to carry on. I past an armored vehicle museum at Muckelbourough with a group of people being towed
around seemingly dangerously on the back of an armored vehicle.
The
cliffs began to peter out and I stopped at Salthouse by walking on what was now
shingle. The first lift I got was from a
couple in a camper van – the lady passenger kindly climbing in the back so I
had a seat in the front. They told me
that a mammoth skeleton had recently been found in the earth in the cliffs. My next lift was from a couple in a big
BMW. We discussed the merits of the
author Bill Bryson. Getting out of
Sherringham was tricky. A very elderly
man stopped and took me just up the road to the outskirts of the town. I hitched for a while and go cross when a bus
sailed past me – it must have been an express bus. A lady came to the bus stop and a bus soon
appeared and took me to Cromer. I asked
in the TIC next to the bus stop in Cromer about a bus to Mundesley and was told
one was due and as if by magic there it was waiting for me.
I
checked the weather forecast which looked OK for Saturday morning so later
booked myself in for one more night.
I went
back to the Wyndham Arms that evening for a couple of pints of local Norfolk
ale and a hot chilli. Men kept coming in and ordering drinks and then left for
next door. It turned out that they were a group of shanty singers who were due
to come back in later and sing in the pub.
Unfortunately I was so tired and worried I would have too many pints of
the fine ale that I had to leave and have an early night.
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