Weather: Overcast in morning
and sunny in afternoon
Distance: 31.5 km (19.6
miles) Total Distance:
2676 miles
I was
out of the hostel and walking by 8.00am.
There was no other car in the free car park at Salthouse, down a track
towards the sea. The first part of the
walk was on the top of crumbling sea defences made from sand and shingle. I read later that I should not have been
walking on top of these banks but the path at the foot of the embankment was
almost impassable because of mud and the beach so full of pebbles that walking
would have proved very energy sapping.
At
Cley Eye was another small car park, bird hides and a café which was tempting
but not open till 9.00am and it was just before that. In all honesty I was not
yet hungry so I carried on inland up the sea defence to Cley next to the
Sea. This village looked very posh even
though it hardly stirred at this time in the morning –you could tell by the
number of BMWs and Mercs outside the hotels etc! I entered the village by passing a windmill –
seemingly obligatory in all these North Norfolk villages. It was then over the
bridge and onto a footpath down onto the marshes again. It was still early and there was quite a bit
of bird-life around.
On
entering Blakeney via the car park I almost got bowled over for the second time
in a week by a dog and again there was no apology from the owner, just a cross
word to the dog which I am not sure did much good. I had a coffee and cake (£1.20) from a
caravan tea shop in the car park and sat outside looking at a couple of men
detecting underground pipes. Blakeney
seemed to be very posh again.
The next
hour or so was along a very reasonable path on the edge of a series of salt
marshes. Between Balkeney and Stiffkey
there was a large lake on the landward side teaming with noisy bird-life. Just short of Wells Next-to-the-Sea I passed a gent who looked to be in his 60s but at the same time a serious walker. I asked him about the condition of the path
past Wells and he told me he walked on the beach and it had taken him a couple
of hours from Burnham Overy – a time I could not match so he must have been a
bit of an experienced walker.
Wells
is a port with a collection of trawlers and people catching crabs off the
quay. Nothing looked inviting in the way
of places to stop for a snack so I carried on northwards towards the sea along a
very popular path for dog walkers and people generally out for a stroll.
Past the miniature railway station and
lifeboat station on the beach there was a great collection of beach huts all on
stilts. I stopped at one and had some
biscuits and a drink from my rucksack enjoying the sunshine that was now
out. The sand was pretty firm so I also
kept to the beach all along Holkham Bay.
There were fewer and fewer people the more west I got and a couple of
horses being ridden on the beach. I
overshot the path back inland by a couple of hundred yards and had to
backtrack. The path back inland to
Burnham Overy was much more busy as was the village itself.
I
walked up onto the main road and phoned the free Norfolk public transport phone
number to find out if there was a bus and indeed there was soon. I saw a couple of walkers seemingly also
waiting for a bus up the road so went and had a chat to them whilst we all got
concerned that the bus was late. It
eventually arrived and took us all to Wells.
I asked the driver if he was going further along the coast but was told
that he was heading inland and he did not think there was another bus along the
coast so I walked up the hill to the main road and started hitching.
I got a lift from two retired teachers who
were on their way to pick up spare parts for their kiln in Blakeney. They told me that Blakeney was so posh that
the place they were going to was not allowed to display a sign outside. My next lift was from a middle aged man who
was a pretty poor driver. He used to be an architect in London until he
recently moved to Blackney to be a portrait painter. He was off to join his wife in Florence who
organised conferences for doctors.
I sat
in my car a while once I got back enjoying the sunshine. Back at the hostel I met my room-mate – a
young librarian from Lincoln library who by coincidence was also walking at
Wells at lunchtime and had lunch sitting on the steps of a beach-hut at Wells!
I went
to the Indian Restaurant near the Youth Hostel for my tea. It was pretty busy
even though it was early. It turned out
that it was doing half price curries and had been all year. I had a good chicken rogan josh with rice,
naan and pint of larger for £7.60
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