Bacton

We were not sure whether this holiday was going to go ahead or not. First the dog got an abscess at the back of his eye which the vet thought may need surgery. Then we found ourselves without a Motor home (it’s a long story). I rang up Anthony at Don Amott Leisure.

“ I need a motor home in a hurry, what have you got?”

“ What are you looking for, and how much do you want to spend?”

I told him

It took him a few minutes to stop laughing

“You’ll be lucky” he said, “but leave it with me

Half an hour later he came back

“I’ve got one I can let you have but it’s a good couple of grand over your budget”

"I didn’t really want to spend too much, I’ll have to recount the pennies”

“Oh hang on, go on the website and take a look at this Elnagh Slim, it’s immaculate, and I can get under your budget”

We had an Elnagh before and had a lot of trouble with so I wasn’t too keen

We were in the middle of a heat wave in early July, and the combination of hot clammy weather and the thought of telling Kim that we couldn’t go on holiday was beginning to make me really sweat

"Its got air conditioning”

"We’ll take it!”

At the same time the dog had improved and was almost back to his normal self, so with enough antibiotics to last 10 days or so we decided to chance it.

It was quite strange coming back to Cromer 11 months after we had left it at the end of last years holiday. It was inevitable the we’d start looking for familiar landmarks from last year, however the only one I was interested in was the signpost for Mundesley, the next stop on our mission.

We were stopping at a no frills campsite 600 yards from the beach at a place called Bacton. It was a very hot humid day and so before anything else we had to roll out the awning and get the sun-shades in place.

The last time we were here the locals were fighting off a foreign invasion of ladybirds that had swamped the Norfolk coast. The fight was obviously won because we didn’t see a single ladybird, but instead were swamped with about a million little black flies. It’s a shame there weren’t any ladybirds as they would have had a real feast.

Later on that day we asked a local about the ladybirds.

"Well you see, they were foreign ladybirds what had flew in across the sea” he told us, “which was bad for the indigenous species

“What like these black flies?” I asked

“Yes exactly”

So there we were: these flies were a real nuisance getting in my skin, clothes, food etc, but at least they were our very own English flies.

After 3 attempts at pitching the motor home and then breaking camp to escape the flies we eventually managed to set up on a nice edge of the field. We had a place that was marginally better than the other 2 we tried, as we were now only swamped by flies in their hundreds instead of thousands. We got the chairs out, sat down and then both realised something was missing.

“Where’s the dog?” we both asked in a panic.

Whilst we had been messing about trying to find the perfect pitch, Ollie had managed to work out how to get through the 600 yards of hedges and fields to the beach, and had a great time in the sea and sand. We knew this because, as we were frantically searching the campsite and surrounding fields, he turned up dripping wet, covered in sand and looking very pleased with himself. He started jumping up trying to get us to follow him to show us what he’d found. It was as bad as having the kids with us.

At this point I’m supposed to write about the village of Bacton, but to be honest there is really very little to write about other than an old ruin and lots of holiday cottages. There really was nothing there. Of course it did have the fabulous sandy beach which is what we have come to expect on the East coast. The dog led us to a big blue ocean and a sandy beach containing a naked man lying with his backside in the air. As I said: typical of the East coast.

The following morning was one of the rare occasions when I woke really early and so decided to take the dog a walk. I was so glad I did; it was a beautiful July morning, with bright sunshine and no breeze. We walked for an hour without seeing another soul until we got to the far end of the beach by the Gas terminal, when we walked passed a guy walking his dog. “Morning” I said enthusiastically. He never said a word nor even looked at me. This really winds me up; what does it cost to say Good Morning to someone? If ever this blog gets converted into a best selling book and a multi million dollar movie with my part being played by Johnny Depp (Kim wishes!) or someone, then the man with the beard and cigarette in his mouth walking his St Bernard at 7.30 on July 11 2010 will be named and shamed forever ha!

This was now our 2^nd holiday in Norfolk and we had not yet visited a windmill, which is apparently something you have to visit when in Norfolk. Fortunately for us we had passed a very well restored windmill as we had gone through Mundesely. We couldn’t stop because the car park wasn’t big enough for the Motor home. Luckily enough our daughter Laura had just turned up to join us so we commandeered her car and ventured down to the windmill. As structures go it was a very fine example of a Norfolk windmill: it’s just a shame it wasn’t a working one, as the engineer in me would have loved to see it in operation. I had to make do with a few old drawings and black and white photos of turn of the century windmill people.

We were in the middle of the hottest weekend of the year so far and so the afternoon was spent lounging around in the campervan. Only the dog seemed to have any energy so Laura, while sat reading her magazine, would occasionally throw a ball for the dog. Then she suddenly realised it had been a good 5 minutes since she’d thrown the ball. “Where’s the dog gone?” she said in a panic. Just then a very wet looking dog ran back in to the site. He’d obviously got a bit hot chasing his ball and so he decided to run down to the sea to cool off! Whilst Laura was scolding him for running off I was admiring him for being a very clever dog.

East Runton

We arrived at our destination, the Holyhead campsite in East Runton, early afternoon and after a quick lunch it was time to explore once more. Sheringham was about 3 miles in one direction and Cromer 2 miles in the other. So, to keep everything in the right order, we decided to visit Sheringham first.

“Its about a 40 minute walk” I said but the looks on the faces said it all; “or 10 minutes on the bus”

After about forty five minutes wait, we began our ten minute journey to Sheringham.

Sherringham

From the first moment we got in to Norfolk we noticed a very large number of Ladybirds. They were everywhere, both living and dead. This was confirmed when we got off the bus at Sheringham, when we saw a local paper headline which read “Ladybird Invasion threat to tourism” Of all the creatures in the bug world, ladybirds are about the most palatable. Laura and Kim generally shriek every time they come within 6 feet of a wasp, but a Ladybird is welcome to walk all over their hands and is viewed with some wonder. Apparently though, according to the paper, some of these pesky creatures had flown in to people’s hair and stuff and completely ruined their holiday. If that was enough to ruin their holiday I wondered what would have happened if a Godzilla type creature had come out of the sea and stolen their sandwiches.

“I don’t think much of Sheringham” said Kim as we were walking through. I could understand what she meant; the place seemed like a normal town with a beach on the side of it. The promenade had been beefed up to provide protection against costal erosion to the point where it was just one long slab of concrete. It had the feeling of being some sort of East European resort in the days of the Iron Curtain and, although they had recently spruced it up with some artwork, it still felt quite drab. We climbed up to a terrace that overlooked the beach and there were a number of benches with Plaques remembering various people who had spent many happy holidays in Sheringham, so it was clear that not everyone shared our view.

The bench I was sitting on was dedicated to a lady who had been coming to Sheringham for 50 years. I had to stop and wonder, what the hell do you do at the same place for 50 years?

One thing people did on the beach was build sandcastles. I counted at least 30 different sandcastles being built. I thought there must be a competition on but there were no signs to say so or any evidence of any judges.

Sandcastle building has been going on at seaside resorts for longer than anyone can remember. The formula is simple; Mum and Dad buy their kids, as a minimum, a bucket and spade, although there are numerous other accessories such as rakes and sand moulds. Once on the beach the whole sand castle project has to be carefully planned by the “Master Sandcastle architect” (normally known to the kids as Dad). The sand castle is built in theory by the kids, although the Master Sandcastle Architect is usually in close supervision to offer guidance, help and if necessary will take over the building personally. So where did the sand castle building skills come from? His Dad probably showed him who was shown by his Dad and so on back until the very first bright spark had this great idea of filling a fun day on the beach. .

We were watching one family below us who were absolute masters of the art of sandcastle building, so much so that they had brought their garden tools with them. Their structure was almost complete with dad putting in the final touches to the moat and defences whilst the rest of the family decorated the battlements. It was like something out of an Authurian legend, it was amazing. It felt such a shame that fairly soon it would be abandoned to the mercy of the incoming sea.


The kids had decided to go back to the campsite so Kim and I decided to take Ollie on to the beach. Walking on the beach at the end of the town it started to become obvious why they had built the concrete promenade. There was plenty of evidence of land erosion. Between the sand and the cliff there was a very neat row of pebbles about 20 feet deep which obviously didn’t belong to this coast. Sea defences is something they are taking very seriously here.

Once we’d walked about a mile along the beach away from the town I recalled a Physics program I was watching not so long ago about these particles that last for a mere millisecond and then are gone forever. There is a lot of debate over this as to whether they exist or not. At that precise moment I became a true believer as one of them left a message on my mobile phone. “You have a missed called from Tom” it said. It had to be one of these pesky particles because it didn’t matter how many times I walked over the same spot, waving my phone up and down there was no way I could find any kind of particle to send a message back.

“I wonder what he wanted?” I said, and immediately knew that was not a wise thing to do.

“I hope they are alright” Kim replied

At this point parents like us then have a tendency to go in to what I call “Neurotic Parent Disorder” and the conversation starts moving in a very sinister direction.

“Laura didn’t look too well, I hope she hasn’t been taken ill”
“There could have been an accident, you know how they never look before crossing roads”
“Two young kids on their own are a prime target for a mugger or something”

We started to walk very quickly back to the town, but no signal. We got to within a hundred yards, still no signal, we frantically started climbing the stones and for every 2 steps we walked forward the stones slipped and set us 1 step back.

“Which idiot decided to put these stones here, my kids are in mortal danger and all some town planner could think about was his precious cliffs being washed away”

We scrambled up to the path, no signal, on to the promenade, no signal. By this time the Neurotic Parent Disorder had totally enveloped us. We got half way up the main street and the magic word “Orange” suddenly appeared on the phone. I rang Tom’s number, it rang and rang, but of course if he was in an ambulance it probably wouldn’t work. Then I heard “Hello”

“Hello Tom, what’s up?”

“What?”

“I got a missed call, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, we couldn’t remember the name of the campsite, but it’s OK we found it”

Kids, don’t you just love ‘em!

The bus stop was opposite the train station. But this was no ordinary station, this had steam trains, and in the evening they have steam trains with carriages set up for evening meals with posh table cloths and bottles of wine and stuff. There were diners arriving all dressed up for an evening meal on the train. I felt so jealous as the train started to whistle and pulled out of the station. I also began to feel very hungry and was looking forward to going back to the van to eat the meal the kids were preparing for us.

Now when catching a bus anywhere, it’s always useful to check what time the bus is due to return. Suddenly finding out that the bus is not due for another hour and a half when the kids, for the first time on holiday are actually preparing a meal at that very moment, eagerly waiting for you to return so that they can show off their culinary delights, can come as a nasty surprise. It was no good, we needed something to alleviate the stress; thank heaven for pubs.

Cromer

One thing that is becoming very noticeable as we travel around the coast is the growing number of health and safety signs saying Danger don’t go here or don’t do that. In Skegness there was a sign with about 20 do’s and don’ts whilst on the beach. Thinking back this could be why there were so few people on the beach as it was obviously a very dangerous place to be. I had to smile at the one that said “No inflatable’s” when no more than 50 yards away there was a row of shops doing a roaring trade selling inflatable’s.

The campsite we were staying at, the Hollyhead campsite, was perched on a cliff that was gradually eroding, but did have fantastic views over the sea on top of a very tall cliff. It did however mean a long walk in either direction into either East or West Runton to get access to the beach, unless you went down a very steep but just about manageable sandy path. This was, however fenced off with a sign saying “Danger no access to the beach” At that moment a group of people came along carrying a couple of inflatable’s. They slipped under the fence down the “dangerously” steep path and in a few minutes were floating on the sea. Had he been there, the man with the hard hat, high visibility jacket and clipboard would have probably had a seizure.

Being the Health and Safety conscious people that we are we decided to join the beach at East Runton and walk along the beach to Cromer. The Cliffs were made of sand and were slowly crumbling away in the same way that we saw in East Yorkshire. Whilst sauntering along, we saw a few signs advising us to keep clear of the cliff face- above us were caravans perched very close to the edge of the cliff, and. I wasn’t sure whether this advice was warning us that I could be buried under an avalanche of sand or a 40 foot long caravan could suddenly fall on me. Either way I felt a little more comfortable rolling up my trouser legs and walking in the sea, away from the dangers overhead.

One thing that was very noticeable when walking in the sea was how much colder it was here. Whereas the towns we had visited earlier were in the sheltered area of The Wash, Sheringham and Cromer were right out in to the North Sea. Even in the height of summer there was still a chill off the North Winds and the sea was at a very refreshing temperature.

Walking through the town we came across a second hand bookshop, similar to the one we found in Snettersham. We had also found one in Wells but it was shut on both thedays we were there. Just like the Snettersham shop, this was run by a pensioner who looked to be in his seventies. As the closed bookshop in Wells was only open 3 days a week, it was easy to presume that this one was also owned by an elderly person. It got me wondering what would happen when these people finally leave us. Will there be anyone to step in to their shoes and run the shops like they have done. In this modern world of Internet book sales it seems likely these bookshop owners are quite literally a dying breed. Yet there is something quite special about going in to a bookshop like this one and being able to browse through books both new and old. It will be really sad if these places were to dissapear along with their owners.

Aspreviously done in Snettersham, we did our bit to support a dying trade and walked out having purchased a handful of books. This included a book entitled “The Longest Crawl” by a guy called Ian Marchant about 2 guys travelling the whole length of the country on one giant pub crawl. I had an idea; maybe we could incorporate this in to our mission and realised that we had already visited quite a number of pubs on our way round. I could feel another mission coming on.

Cromer was great and had all the charm of an English seaside town with the usual parks, sandy beach with beach huts and a pier. Most piers in England were built by the Victorians and Cromer pier opened in 1901 so was just about Victorian. The idea of a Pier was that people of Victorian times could get the sensation of being out at sea without going through all the nuisance of hiring a beach hut, which was then wheeled down to the sea so that they could take a dip without anyone seeing them in their bathing suits. A Pier meant that they could walk out over the water without any danger of anyone seeing their ankles. And very fine structures they were too (the piers that is, not their ankles). Today Piers contain amusement arcades, theatres and cafes. And Cromer Pier didn’t disappoint. This Pier, however, was unusual in that it had another Pier built on to the end of it which housed the Lifeboat. As I was standing on the end of the Pier waiting for Kim and Laura to come out of the RNLI shop, I found a flaw in the Victorians’ grand idea of walking out to sea. Even though this was a sunny day in August, with a stiff breeze coming off the North Sea it was bloody freezing!

So our summer holiday was drawing to an end. I tried to work out how far we had come so far and at a rough estimate we had covered about 250 miles of the English coast, but had reached the point where it was too far to come for a short break and so probably have to wait until our next summer holiday to continue where we had left off. According to the UK Coast-guide, the total distance around the UK coast is 7,723 miles, although if we stuck to just the mainland and ignored the islands this brought it down to just a mere 5000 miles. We had covered a measley 5% of the journey through what was probably the easiest stretch of coast to do. One thing’s for sure, we were going to see a lot of beaches, be eating plenty of Fish and Chips, and visiting quite a large number of pubs over the next 20 summers or so. Roll on next summer

Blakeney

We left Wells bright and early and took the road to Cromer for our next destination, East Runton, which is in between the towns of Sheringham and Cromer. On the way we stopped off at the village of Blakeney. Blakeney Quay was a lovely small natural harbour with a few boats moored on a small inlet from the sea, which meandered through the marshes like a river. In medieval times this was a major port, but the silting up of the river eventually prevented the bigger ships getting through. The remains of a medieval grain store can still be seen. These days the front has a small selection of shops and art galleries.

We were just thinking that it was a shame we couldn’t have stayed in Blakeney as there were a few activities planned for later in the week, when suddenly a large six foot yellow duck jumped straight in front of us.

“Would you like to have a go in a duck race” it said.

“When is it?”

“Seven o’clock this evening”

“ I would have a go, but we wont be here then.”

“That’s OK, leave your number and we will call you if you win”, at which point we were directed towards a lady selling tickets.

He then jumped in front of another family, startling the little girl with them, which resulted in her kicking over a pot full of live crabs. There was then a great deal of commotion as half the people on the quay went chasing after the crabs to throw them back in to the sea before they starting attacking people.

Later in the week they were going to have their annual greasy pole competition. Once a year a pole is placed across the creek, and then greased. All the local men then have to try and get across without slipping off into the creek. Tom and I really wanted to have a go but by then we would be a few miles further down the coast.

So far we had managed to get along the coast road really well in the Motor-home. We’d been told it could be a struggle, but as the buses used the route, we thought it would be easy enough. Until, that is, we went through a town called Cley next the Sea The road was plenty wide enough for traffic to go in both directions, but the road was made a lot narrower by the parked cars. We got almost right through the village until, on the last part of the road, we hit a problem. Our side of the road was clear but cars were parked on the other side. A car coming the opposite way decided to come straight for us and then pull in between parked cars. This in itself wasn’t a problem except a guy behind driving a Honda, instead of waiting a few seconds, decided to follow him. With cars behind us and no where to go he effectively blocked the road and caused a grid lock. There was then a few frantic minutes of cars being manoeuvred back and forth until the guy in the Honda could just pull in enough to give me the exact space needed for me to edge forward. With a brick wall on one side and the Honda’s bumper on the other, a centimetre either-way and my pristine Motor-home would be that way no longer. I gritted my teeth and pressed the accelerator and just got through, with some filthy looks and shaking of heads from a couple of passers by. As far as they were concerned I had the big vehicle and was so obviously in the wrong, even though I had a clear road until some prat in a Honda decided to change that.

A few weeks later I was watching an episode of Top Gear and they showed the most stupid car accidents that had been posted on the Internet.

“There is a theme running through these adverts” said Jeremy Clarkson, “ See if you can see what it is”

Yes, you guessed it; they were all driving bloody Hondas!

Ok, rant over; on to our next stop East Runton.

Wells Next the Sea

So far we have travelled down from the East Riding of Yorkshire, along the Lincolnshire coast and we’re now half way along the North Norfolk coast. We have seen plenty of sand, sea and luckily quite a lot of sunshine, three very important ingredients for a successful seaside holiday. But there was something missing, something that a large island like Great Britain is famous for and has in abundance. We hadn’t seen any boats! This all changed as soon as we entered the town of Wells Next the Sea. Wells is built on the edge of a natural harbour so it was a great place to see boats, even if it was low tide and they were nearly all beached waiting for the tide to come in.

It was great fun walking in between the many types of boat, some lying at a forty five or so degree angle and the two fin variety standing upright as though they were on stilts. Although most of the boats were abandoned, a few had their owners still aboard waiting patiently for the sea to return.

With the tide out, the whole harbour basin was a mixture of sand dunes and puddles of sea water left over from the last high tide. Laura and Ollie were having a great time with the dog jumping in and out of the puddles.

“He’s going to pull me in, the way he’s going” screeched Laura. So we all stood with our cameras ready waiting for just that moment. Laura spoilt our fun by managing to keep upright and out of the water.

Wells town itself is a very pretty historical town with a narrow shopping street selling some very tasteful souvenirs. According to a local historian, 41 pubs have at some time or other been registered in Wells. I was beginning to imagine one of the best pub crawls ever, but he then elaborated on the story and told us that most of them are now serving other purposes and he assured us that this also included pubs being renamed. This meant I had to abandon my plan of having t-shirts with “The 41 Wells Pub Stag Party” printed on them.

We were staying right on the sea front at a place called Pinewoods Holiday Park. Unlike all the other sites we have stayed on so far in Norfolk, this one had facilities. It had a supermarket, coffee shop, and even a boating lake. All the facilities for the van were on hand, including a tap with a constant supply of fresh water and a drain to take it away once we’d used it. But, at three times the price we had so far been paying, it was certainly a case of getting what you paid for. However it did lack the intimate feel of the smaller sites we had so far visited. What was really nice on the small sites was that everyone was really friendly and seemed to have a genuine interest in us and what we were doing. I’d had long conversations about the “Mission” to travel all the way round the UK and genuinely met some very interesting people. It wasn’t that people on this sight were unfriendly, far from it, but they all seemed to keep themselves to themselves and, apart from the odd brief chat about the dog, never really got into any sort of conversation. However, we couldn’t have had a better location, a 10 minute walk to the right and we were in the town, a 10 minute walk to the left and we were on the beach.

The beach itself was the best we had come across since we started which, considering the excellent beaches we had encountered up to now, this was really saying something. We walked through a Pine forest on to a vast expanse of sandy beach and, with the tide out, it was really something special. The channel to the harbour flowed along the one side and was an ideal place for kids to swim in and, with a bank of sand dunes on the other side of the channel, it had just about everything a beach lover could want. At high tide there was a the danger of getting stranded on the dunes, but a hooter would sound to let you know when the sea was coming in. So at this point everyone was alerted to quickly head back to the main beach.

The beach huts here were amazing, with many of them built on stilts, and a backdrop of the pine forest behind them. If I was ever planning to spend a lot of time here, then one of these beach huts would have to be a must. At £60,000 asking price though, they were not cheap.

Later that afternoon we were back in the harbour. If we had any desires of sitting on the harbour walls, these were quickly dashed as just about every spare space on the wall was occupied by a child with a crab fishing net dangling in the water on the end of a fishing line. The net was baited with a piece of bacon, which apparently the crabs are very fond of. This also explained why just about everu convenience tore and butchers shop was advertising their bacon prices.

“What have you caught” I asked one of the kids, He showed me his bucket with 2 small crabs in it.
“My brother has caught a really big one” He told me, and with that his brother proudly showed me a perfect specimen of Norfolk crab that was about the size of his hand.

It was great to just sit eating fish and chips and watching the tide come in. The first sign of this was the small stream that we previously had to cross to get on to the sand bank, becoming a fast flowing river. Then a slow trickle of water started to tease the boats by tickling their fins. The main entrance to the harbour where Ollie had previously enjoyed his swim was now deep enough for the fishing boats to return to base. They came in one after another filled with crates of fresh Norfolk crab. One at a time we saw the boats that were lying on their side on the sand bank slowly start to upright themselves as more water started to flow in. You could hear boat engines in the harbour start to roar in to life ready to go to sea. All of a sudden the whole area had started to come alive and it seemed a totally different place from the one we came to a couple of hours ago. Where there was calm and quiet, there was now the sounds of boats getting ready for sea, fishing boats being unloaded and boats arriving back after a day out at sea.

As this was carnival week there were a number of activities going on in the town. We saw advertised a walk through the town run by a local historian. We thought it would be an interesting way to spend a couple of hours, so we spent our Fiver and off we went. We heard a number of interesting stories of local deeds and misdemeanours perpetrated by the good and not so good people of Wells. The most famous resident, we were told, was a guy named John Field. His claim to fame was that he was the first mate on HMS Bounty who Fletcher Christian replaced on the voyage that became famous for the Mutiny. According to the guide, the infamous Captain Blythe was not as bad a fellow as he is painted by the Hollywood movie and he actually got a lot of bad press. Somehow, though, trying to imagine Captain Blythe as a good guy sort of spoils one of my favourite stories.