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
“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 ever
ywhere, 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. T
he 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 s
team 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 slo
wly 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 h
uts 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
ywhere, 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. T
he 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 s
team 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 slo
wly 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 h
uts 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
