Norfolk Road Trip (1)

I don’t currently own a car, so I thought I’d rent one for a few days to get out and about. I collected the car last Friday morning, and the first nice experience - it’s a shiny black dead sexy Fiesta Zetec - and just been delivered to them, so I’m the first driver!


My first trip is back to my house and to collect my GPS and my diet cokes, and off to get gas as the tank’s on empty. It’s a bright sunny day, and I open the windows and turn on the radio as I start off down the main road to Norwich, - this is as good as it gets short of having a convertible!! On a whim I turn off at a sign to Pentney Lakes, a quiet country road, so I turn off the radio and drive slower and listen to the sound of the country. And also the smells of the country, which range from sweet to - how shall I put this - agricultural!

I’m soon at Pentney - a new community of log cabins around a lake. There are still plots for sale with planning permission to build your own cabin, and that would be a nice place to spend a long warm summer. Driving past the community, I get better views of the lake and the birds that live there, and see that they actually spill out not just onto the adjacent field, but onto the neighbouring farmer’s fields. Whilst stopping to look at this, I see what appears to be a bit of a building stuck in the middle of a field - except it’s more like a pillar than anything. But there is no sign and no one to ask so I just take a photo and move on.



As I drive I use my GPS to take me the “shortest routes” - I know that this means I get to use the tiny country roads, and that is exactly what I want! At other times I turn the GPS off and just drive - the fields around here are full of pheasants, and from the amount of road kill one sees, they are also very accident prone. I’m a city boy - and I get excited about seeing real wildlife just being there, so I keep slowing to watch the pheasants and rabbits I pass - and the one dear I spot in the distance!! After a while I get used to the single track, two way roads I'm driving on, and don’t panic when I spot a car coming in the opposite direction, although I do get concerned when it’s an enormous farm tractor - will they actually see me in my tiny car!



It’s now lunchtime, so I ask my GPS where there is a restaurant - it takes me to where is says a Little Chef is - only it’s a field!! However, just down the road is a place called “Hollywood Legends” - and how could I resist with a name like that:) It’s a reasonable place, and next to it is the Legends Car Wash. As I sit down and order, a lady arrives and goes looking to have her car washed - only the worker there is in the restaurant about to have his lunch! In a typical friendly Norfolk way, he says he will leave lunch till later, and the lady says for him to finish.
Lunch over, I set out for the coast, again using the small roads and getting really into the rural heart of Norfolk - mile after mile of straight (but tiny) roads through farm land, and the occasional village of just a few cottages with its village sign, and normally a pub and maybe a store too. Some of the places I drive through are probably too small even to be called a village, just 20 or so houses clustered round the road.



Soon I come to Hunstanton, which is quite a popular seaside resort in these parts - and an interesting one for the east coast; because of the way the coastline works, Hunstanton actually looks out west over the water!! It’s not really high season yet, and I drive into the huge parking lot near the amusement rides and there are only 5 other cars here - along with a duck and her ducklings waddling along the road. I stop here just to use the toilet, then drive on further along to Hunstanton Cliff, and park there.



We are on The Wash here - a strip of water from the North Sea that creates what is almost like a mini sea of its own, and here at low tide the sand goes on for miles. I change out of my jeans and driving shoes into shorts and sandals, and walk out the long way to where the sea is, and one can see why this area can be dangerous - as the tide comes in it will cover these flat areas of sand really quickly, and cut people off surrounded by water.



I spend about an hour on this bit of beach - walking and then just sitting in the sand dunes enjoying the sounds and smells, and the sun on my body. But then I get the urge to move on, so I get back in the car to drive some more - but as it turns out, not far. I follow a sign saying “old Hunstanton” and get to another part of the same beach. Here, however, there are many more sand dunes, with lots of beach huts in and among them.



Beach huts always appeal to me; I’ve never been in one, but they seem to encapsulate the essence of the old fashioned British seaside holiday. No water, no plumbing, no electricity, you’re not allowed to sleep in them overnight, and they are shut up all winter. But a “home away from home” by the sea, somewhere to sit and make a cup of tea on the gas stove you keep there. Or to hide from the rain when we’re on the beach coz it’s a holiday and we WILL enjoy it, whatever the climate thinks! On other beaches these huts are in solid straight lines along the promenade, but these are more random - they are dotted among the dunes and are raised up on stilts, maybe to avoid flooding, maybe to give them a better view?
Getting back to the car, and trying to keep most of the sand outside, I set off again along the coast road to Holm and Holm Dunes nature reserve. Once again I park and set out to walk - and here we need to cross a golf course to get to the dunes. There are signs up to show you where to look, and netting to “hide” behind when they are playing. If Hunstanton showed one face of the British Holiday tradition, here at Holms Dunes we come across another sort of vacation, because it’s along the Norfolk Coast Path, and hikers can be seen even this early in the year walking the 50 miles from Hunstanton to Cromer.


But not for me, for today - I walk out along the wild dunes and out onto the sand flats - no Amusement parks or beach huts here - just the open sea and the dunes. It is a glorious day, sunny, and the sounds of birds carried by the wind. The sort of place that makes you want to just stop the world, and take some quiet time.