July 30, 2012: Hunstanton to Brancaster
Launched at last, we head for Gore Point.
Two months after completion of the Peddars Way, when I was accompanied by Tosh and Margie, I set out to complete the route’s sequel, the Norfolk Coast Path. My companion this time would be Gavan, another longtime walking partner and, in his case, a former student. We had missed out on a major expedition in 2011 so this would be our first overnight venture since completion of the Speyside Way in 2010. Gavan’s London visit, which had begun on Friday had, of course, another purpose this year – but one which readers of our Great Glen Way accounts will readily anticipate: the 2012 London Olympics. Gavan had managed one day at the Games the day after his arrival and now, on Sunday, we would head north for a four-day walk along the Norfolk coast.
Shortly after 1:00 the phone rang, announcing the arrival of the minicab that would take us to King’s Cross. Curiously, by the time Gavan had descended to the street this vehicle had disappeared and another phone call had informed me that the first (a people carrier) was needed elsewhere and that a more modest sedan would be here soon. Thus encouraged I lofted my daypack (Gavan was kindly carrying my big backpack) and locked the front door. Our new driver, complaining all the while about lane restrictions due to the Games, made us guess which African country he came from…answer: Somalia via Saudi Arabia.
In fact, traffic was no problem and we arrived with almost 45 minutes in hand – spending the intervening minutes purchasing tickets, including returns, from a very efficient Asian young lady, and looking in vain for a place to sit down. We also visited the WH Smith’s for some liquid and I again had a mocha Frappuccino from Mr. Starbucks – an instant replay of my routine at the beginning of the Peddars Way expedition.
We boarded the 2:15 for King’s Lynn and, even though it was a Sunday, we had no engineering works to contend with as we sped north under darkening skies. Gavan tapped away at his laptop and soon fell into conversation with some plummy Nor-folk who were quite interested in some of the Olympic tickets he was trying to re-sell. Gavan had been shopping online, often using me as an intermediary, for months – and he had overbought considerably. Even with the sale of surplus tickets he would attend some twenty events and he had roped me into seven. I was kind of hoping that these Blakeney folks would offer us a ride to Hunstanton – since they knew we were thinking of taking the bus – but soon after directing us to the bus stop at King’s Lynn, at 3:50, I saw them get into a sports car – with no back seat. This was a shame since it was now beginning to rain.
It looked like we would have some forty minutes to wait for the Coasthopper and so we decided to head for the taxi queue – repeating in reverse the journey here on June 1. Our driver, quoting a fee of £35.00, was full of chat about the unfolding scene and he and Gavan collaborated on the best route to our b&b in Hunstanton – Gavan summoning the appropriate maps on his phone. So, at about 4:30 we were unloading again at the Bays Guest House on Avenue Road, where one our hostesses, Jane, was also an Olympics enthusiast – she remembered that I had tickets to the 100 meters final.
We were shown to a twin room on the first floor and, after a little Olympics on the telly, we headed out at 6:00 in search of a place to eat. It had stopped raining but there were far fewer people about than the last time I was here. I was able to add two more punning places of business to my photo collection – a pet shop called Top Cat and Tails and a gift shop called Past and Presents. I knew most of the likely venues for food but we finally decide on Fishers, a fish and chip restaurant where we each had the small cod and chips and a bottle of beer. Then it was back to the Bays and an all-night Olympics-fest (I did a puzzle and read some articles). Well, at least the Games weren’t in Beijing and they did come to an end at a decent hour and we could go to sleep (or I could after two hours of Gavan’s racketing snores).
In the morning we had breakfast, served by Anne, at 8:30 – an excellent repast even though the other guests sniffed at my proprietary hold on the homemade marmalade. Jane was in a state of high excitement over the British lady hockey players and Gavan got her to pose out front with four-nil represented by fingers and fist. This photo, and one taken at my breakfast table in the park, soon appeared in the Olympics blog that Gavan was filing for the online version of the Hartford Courant back in Connecticut.
Leaving our bags behind for transfer to our next destination we now left Hunstanton at 9:35, beginning a 10.5-mile stretch to Brancaster. Gavan took twice as many pictures a I did, beginning with a Norfolk Coast Path arrow – listing the distance to Cromer as 47 miles. Of course he carried Bruce Robinson’s guidebook in the map case again, but, at least for the first two and half miles or so, I knew the way pretty well without any map – having walked into Hunstanton on this route only two months earlier.
It was a beautiful, fresh morning, with sun and cloud, and Gavan was immediately impressed by the lush greenery in the esplanade parkland and the views across the Wash – with a wind farm on the horizon. There were lots of people about and their dogs – with the Chow very much in favor. At St. Edmund’s Well, at about the spot where Margie had completed her mile 800, I paused to have Gavan take my photo – I had just completed my mile 4700.
Then it was past the lighthouse, along a parking lot and down a sandy path to reach the lifeboat station and the golf course. Once we descend to the beach itself in order to view the dramatically colored cliffs nearby. Gavan was fascinated by the colorfully painted beach huts and we sat on the front porch of one of them for a little water. I suggested that we avoid the unsteady, sinking surface of the dunetop path and keep on more solid ground between the dunes on our left and the golf course on our right. This worked quite well and eventually our impromptu path rose to the end of the ridge just at a spot where the Peddars Way had come to an end and where, heading mostly east throughout this trip, I could say at last that I was walking through new territory.
And lovely territory it was – with boardwalk often in place to help us through a marshy foreground, with the sea off on our left and many small lakes on our right. Curiously, we never seemed to walk at high tide on any of our stages on this trip and the low lying land on our left was often a series of muddy flats festooned with a bumper crop of sea lavender. There were wonderful wildflowers everywhere as we rounded Gore Point and headed inland once again. Gavan, when he was not answering urgent emails on his phone, would often turn around, scan the western skies, and predict an imminent downpour.
Gavan approaches our noontime village, Thornham.
At 12:30, having walked six and half miles, we reached the outskirts of a lovely village, Thornham, and soon located the King’s Head (which also offered the menu of the Orange Tree restaurant) and here we settled in for our pints and some delicious sandwiches and potato wedges. I had a chicken, bacon and avocado sandwich and Gavan had the salmon. My walking partner was soon caught up in work-related emails and enquiries about Olympic tickets and so I wandered outside with my camera and took a number of pictures at the church across the street. When we were at last ready to depart I managed to leave my walking stick behind but I had travelled only a hundred yards before I noticed its absence. “Can’t leave that behind,” one of the other diners joked as I retrieved this object.
The rest of Thornham was also quite interesting, particularly the old school, but we were about to turn our backs on the village and the sea itself for a rare bit of inland walking – a mile and a half uphill trudge on a minor road flanked on either side by wheat fields and the ubiquitous red poppy. The sun was quite strong now and I was very warm and I fished my Japanese sniper hat out of my pack in order to keep the sun off the back of my neck. I counted only seven cars passing us on this lengthy passage but at last we reached a plateau, even descending a little before striking off on a footpath next to a hedgerow – our direction due east again.
Entering Brancaster
Gavan was far out in front of me now but I didn’t mind much. Once I paused to take off my sweatshirt, have a pee, drink some Diet Coke and wipe my brow. After a while our paths and tracks began to head downhill, seaward again, and the steeple of the church at Brancaster became our beacon. Gavan, pausing to take a picture of a lovely village back street, was once again predicting rain. As we reached the main coast road there was some ambiguity about the location on the Ship Inn, where a taxi would ferry us to our place of rest, but as soon as we crossed over to the church, with its pink-faced clock, we could see the hostelry across the street a little bit to the east. It was only 3:15.
We ordered more drinks and, after failing to get a phone signal inside, I went into the parking lot and had better luck in reaching our taxi company. They were expecting us between 4:00 and 5:00 and were astonished at our rapid progress; nevertheless they promised us a cab in forty minutes or so – just about the right time to get down two Diet Cokes. On the pub telly we watched Olympic diving and outside, as predicted, there was a driving rainstorm. Our cab driver sped through the narrow lanes of North Norfolk as he and Gavan worked out how best to approach our b&b, the Armeria, on Warham Road. This proved to be on the far side of Wells-Next-The-Sea and here we arrived at last at about 4:30. We were directed to rooms on the first floor again and I had a brief nap while Gavan was battling it out with work-related e-mails on his laptop.
One recommendation for evening meals was the nearby Bowling Green pub, only a five-minute walk. Here we headed at 6:00 or so – we tended to eat an early meal so as to be in position for the start of the evening’s swimming on the Beeb. The pub was a nice place and we had a relaxing time – both ordering the steak with mushrooms, chips and onion rings. I had an ice cream desert.
To tell the truth, I didn’t much care who won what at the Olympics but Gavan followed all of these details with great attention. I read and dozed but even after I had fallen asleep Gavan needed my assistance in some matter involving the sale of yet more tickets. At least there was no more snoring.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: