Norfolk Coast Path (cont)
When we sat and ate breakfast the next morning, we planned out the day as we normally would.
- Clear the last couple of miles into Cromer. (3 Miles)
- Get to Mundesley for Lunch (13 Miles)
- Walk as far as we can before stopping (20ish Miles)
The problem is it’s hard to plan the day when you’re travelling. Some days your 10 miles in before you stop for 2nd breakfast, other days it gets to lunch, and you’ve only done 5 miles. Today would be closer to the latter. We took a slow walk down to Cromer, walking poles finally out to try and take some of the weight off my feet.
When we did arrive at the seafront there were some serious seaside vibes about the place, and after doing a little bit of shopping in the town, spent over an hour reminiscing about childhood holidays whilst eating ice cream and doughnuts near the pier. This all meant that by the time we left Cromer, it was gone 11 AM and we would need to play catch up.
The route from here (and for the rest of the day) would be along the beach. The tide was just going out, so we made the most of the harder, wet sand and walked 5 miles down the coast before we stopped again. I even decided to take my walking shoes off and walk right on the edge of the sea, letting the waves occasionally wash over my feet.
The miles yesterday had been hard, and we had been stopping every mile or two for a break to rest our feet. Some fresh air and cold water made such a big difference, and felt like all the hard miles they had suffered through were washed away with the tide.
Ian decided once again he would need a nap, so we stopped on the beach near Overstrand. He slept whilst I went for a swim in the sea and sat and read a book for a while. Time ticked away and eventually, we got back up and walked the last 5 miles down to Mundesley, where we were four hours late for our scheduled lunch break. We managed to just make it to the café before it shut at 4 PM, and ordered a couple of jacket potatoes which we sat and ate overlooking the beach. The sun was still high and warm, and people drifted up and down the beach whilst we watched. I was a little jealous of their lack of hiking shoes and heavy backpacks.
Our plan was to just keep walking for as long as we could and see where we end up, and as the sun began to set later that evening, it was another church on the horizon. Although we could see the church, it was another couple of miles until we would get there, so when we found a flat, mowed stretch of grass on the cliff edge we debated stopping. With the grass so well kept, we assumed it would be owned by someone, and a passing dog walker told us it belonged to the village down the road where he lived, and there would likely be a couple of neighbours keen to have a moan given the chance. So instead, we carried on walking into the night, arriving at the church with just enough light left to set up the tent.
The next morning was the first time I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag. The temperature overnight had dropped, and I was warm as I lay in my bed. It was also tempting to try and catch up on some of the sleep I’d missed over the first couple of days. Our camp spot at the church was well out of sight, and the security of knowing it was unlikely you would get caught made it a lot easier to sleep well.
When we did eventually get going, we had to pass through the village of Happisburgh and down onto the beach, passing a tall, red and white lighthouse. A few early mornings swimmers were heading back the other way, hair wet and tucked up warm in Dryrobes.
The route was now pretty much along the coast, either walking on the beach or through the sand dunes. It was a lot easier to walk on the wet sand when the tide was out than trying to get through the sand dunes, where your feet would sink into the sand with each step. It was still high tide when we reached the beach, and we walked for an hour dodging the incoming waves as we tried to keep to the foot or two of wet sand.
After an hour of walking, we arrived at another little village called Sea Palling. Although small, there were a couple of caravan parks and the seafront had a little seaside vibe to it. It even had a café / arcade where we managed to get some greasy breakfast food and Ian lost most of his change to the slot machines.
The rest of the day’s walk carried on along the beach, and we made progress with the tide now out. Miles ticked away in the sun, alone on the remote beaches in between each town. Except for one little beach just down the coast from Horsey Gap, where a crowd of onlookers stood, phones in hand pointing to the sea. They stood along a groyne on the beach, so we didn’t see what all the attention was for until we reached the crowd and looked down to see a colony of 100+ seals lying on the beach.
We sat for an hour, and whilst Ian napped, I perched myself on a concrete step at the top of the beach and just watched the seals go about their lives. Occasionally a smooth, slick, dark grey body would gracefully ride a wave onto the beach and join the party.
After an hour’s break watching the seals, our journey carried on down the beach, and with the tide coming in we were pushed off the hard, wet sand, onto the walking path along the top of the dunes.
It was the hottest day of the trip so far, and the heat of the sun was beating down on us. It felt like an oven in the openness of the sand, and with each step, my foot would slide and sink into the sand, making walking hard work, and quickly draining all energy I had. It felt like time was elongating as the weight of my pack and mental fatigue pulled me into the sand.
Another walker we had stopped to speak to had told us about a food stall on the beach not much further down the route, and with all our energy used up, we couldn’t wait to stop and have an early dinner to help recover. When we got to the stall it was busy, and there was a smell of something barbecuing. Plenty of beachgoers were sat at the little picnic area which was set up, eating burgers and ice creams.
As nice as the food smelled, they didn’t really do anything vegetarian, so I disappointingly had to leave Ian, who had gone to order a burger, and head down a concrete road into the village of Winterton-on-Sea in search of the chip shop.
More disappointment followed as the chip shop didn’t open for another hour, and even more annoyingly, the post office next door was shut due to strikes. We couldn’t afford to waste an hour waiting for the food, so whilst having a mild tantrum, I walked back up to Ian, who had already finished his burger, and insisted on leaving straight away in order to complete the 2 miles to the next town so I could get something to eat. A mixture of anger and hunger carried me through those miles quickly, and I eventually got myself to a chip shop that was open in Hemsby.
As grateful as I was to get a big meal and get to a shop to get some supplies for the night, I was also grateful to get out of Hemsby. Full of holiday parks, amusements and cheap food, it was full of families on holiday, and the hustle and bustle of the large crowds were unfamiliar to us. I was glad to get back down onto the sand and walk our way back into the solitude of the shingle beach.
We had planned for our final destination to be around Caister-on-Sea, as beyond that we would start to head towards Great Yarmouth, which seemed like a different world compared to the remoteness of the small towns we had passed through so far.
Google maps had shown there were no churches along the route tonight, so we would have to find a space to wild camp between the two towns. We didn’t get far past Caister when we noticed the first big holiday park, with its rows of caravans covering the landscape, before we decided to call it a night. We still had an hour or so of light, but with only 10 miles to complete the next morning, there was no rush, and we decided we would much rather wait it out and camp here on the beach where we knew we would be left undisturbed.
We sat on a small concrete wave breaker and watched the waves gently flow in as the sun set behind us. I had a little knot of sadness in the pit of my stomach, knowing that tomorrow our walk would come to an end. It was nice, however, to sit and watch the sea push its way closer to us as the tide came in, and reflect on the trip.
Although shorter than our previous adventure, and without the grand mountains of other national walks, the route had been pleasant and enjoyable. Always flat, the landscape varied each day as we moved across the east of England, and it proved that you didn’t need big hills and distant views to find beauty.
A couple of years earlier, Ian had met a backpacker in Portugal who had travelled along the coast, digging a ditch in the sand each night before getting in and covering himself in a blanket as a makeshift shelter. It had, in fact, been the inspiration for Ian carrying a blanket instead of a sleeping bag all trip. So he decided on the last night that he would do just that, and busied himself with digging a 6-foot trench on the beach as the final moments of light fell.
I decided instead to set the tent up on top of the sand dune, near the golf course, where the sand was firmer and would hold the pegs. I had no aspiration for being cold and covered in sand. Instead, I lay in my tent, door open, and looked out to the sea as I fell asleep for the final time of our trip.
In the morning I woke up earlier than normal, catching the first slither of orange light on the horizon. It was the last day and I wanted one final swim in the sea before we left. Armed with a towel and my swim shorts, I ran down the dunes to wake Ian up, who was still asleep in his ditch, and insisted that he couldn’t go the whole trip without a swim so would have to come in now.
Although the previous day had been warm, the cold had set in overnight. The water froze me as I ran in, and I instantly wanted to turn back to the comfort of my tent. You don’t get to go for a sunrise swim in the sea every day however, so I gritted my teeth and jumped in.
The cold sent a shiver down my spine, and as I felt the air leave my lungs, I tried not to swallow any seawater as my breath sharpened. It passed quickly though, and I must not have looked in too much discomfort as Ian came running in moments later.
As the coldness left me, contentment filled its space as I bobbed along in the waves. It didn’t take much to be happy, but it can be often misguided. Although not able to swim in the sea each morning, there was still plenty I could do at home to get this feeling. Perhaps there was a little guilt that too many mornings are spent drinking coffee and watching TV. For now, I would stay here and enjoy this moment for as long as I could.
The rest of the morning passed by quickly. Both me and Ian had bought a couple of pastries the night before, so no time was wasted cooking breakfast. Instead, we made our way down the final stretch of the Coast Path, joining the road leading into Great Yarmouth, before making our way around the estuary and back down to the beach in Gorleston. Those few miles through Great Yarmouth showed us another landscape, as apart from the mile or so along the seafront, the path works through the industrial park on the riverside, showing that beyond the glamour of the holiday parks, there is a town trying to get by.
The underwhelming urban end to the walk was saved by a final 2-mile walk along the golden beaches of Gorleston and down to Hopton-on-sea. The sun was out, and people were enjoying the final days of their holiday. Wanting my own little taste of summer seaside holidays before I left, I walked the final stretch with a slush puppy drink and watched all the families enjoying themselves on the beach.
At the very end of the path, there was a stretch of 400m of walking on the beach. The tide was coming in quite quickly, but not wanting to go back on ourselves at the very end, we climbed behind the tide breakers and rushed through the final stretch, as waves crashed into the wooden slacks, splashing over the top and showering us occasionally.
We made it down to the rocky beach at Hopton just before the tide pushed in a little too far, and we felt quite guilty as we watched a couple walk the opposite way before being hit by a particularly big wave and getting drenched.
This little rocky beach would be the end of our walk, and it brought a realisation with it. Ian had been on holiday in Norfolk the year before and had talked about a walk he did along the beach. He’d mentioned it continuously throughout our walk as a point of reference, and only as we climbed to steps off that final beach did he realise the holiday park we now had to walk through was in fact where he had stayed before.
This meant he knew where a pub was. So instead of looping around the holiday park and back to the beach to find that final acorn sign marking the coast path, we headed to the pub to enjoy a pint in the sun to reminisce about the highs of the walk, and debate where next years adventure would take us.
Thank you for taking the time to read this 3-part blog post. I hope you have enjoyed it.
Get Up Go Outside 