Letting the train take the strain at the seaside

This week I have only done a small amount of cycling. My Mum has come down to stay and for some reason has turned down my kind offer of going out cycling on the Tandem. Instead I try to get out and show her some of the flatlands around East Anglia - where we can get a bit of walking done. When the kids were small we used to be regular visitors to the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, which are fairly accessible from the Cambridge area. We have probably visited most areas and stayed in a few - Weybourne, Walberswick, Cromer, Sheringham and Southwold to name but a few. We occasionally used to camp for a weekend near Sheringham having only decided to visit on the Friday. They say a change is as good as a rest and camping with kids near the seaside might not be a rest - it is a change though.

So on Sunday we decided to pop up to the coast for a picnic, if the weather forecast looked ok - and it did. The heading of this Post might have been a little misleading - there was not a train to stake the strain for our intended destination - Blakeney. A quick look a 1940 OS map courtesy of Where's the path show a whole bunch of routes we could have taken. (I am not sure quite what the collective term for a route of railway lines is!). Mind you none would have quite gotten us to Blakeney. We took some food, but our plan was to visit a Deli shop in Cley next the Sea and then stop and have a picnic in Blakeney and then to catch a few crabs.

The crabs are caught using bits of streaky bacon tied to a thick fishing line. They are kept in a bucket and then put back at the end of the crabbing session. I think our record for a few hours crabbing is around 30 - we have also caught only 1 or 2 mind on the odd occasion. The crabs could easily let go, they are too greedy and probably well fed as a result of the crabbing activity. Walberswick on the Suffolk coast is also a good place to go - the British Open Crabbing Championship is held there every year.

The first bit of the plan was good - we stopped at the deli - Picnic Fayre and bought a few extra bits and pieces for our picnic. My Mum also bought some jars of interesting chutneys for presents when she goes home. The second part of the plan was not so good -the car park in Blakeney was full though. For some reason I had dismissed from my mind that it was the height of the Summer Season during the School Holidays, a warm Sunny Sunday and a year when various travel issues had probably caused a few families to have a staycation. So we reverted to Plan B, made up on the spot and headed back down the coast to Weybourne, a small village with access to the pebbly beach and more importantly a car-park next to the beach which was likely not to be too busy.

Plan B was good - plenty of space in the car park, sun and sea. We carried our stuff onto the beach and found a dip on the beach where it was slightly out of the breeze and enjoyed a warm-ish breeze and sun and mainly blue skies. This was the view of the sea from where we were sitting. As seems to be often the case there was some unidentified ironwork further down the beach. The pebbles on the beach look striking when taken using a multi-exposure HDR picture.

The beach at Weybourne is quite steep and pebbly. There is a nice walk down to the coast to Sheringham as well. Here is that unidentified pipework. I presume, hope that it is just a rain-water drain from the village. Although I would not have been surprised if it was a sewage pipe as some stage of its life.

This is a North facing beach and so is rather unusual, so far South in the UK. This is the view of the beach looking West. There were people walking, one or two groups sitting and a few fishermen.

The view East towards Sheringham, with a few cliffs in between. On the coastal path you walk past some houses on the edge of the cliff that seem to have a limited life. In this picture you can see how easily the cliff crumbles. Apparently a bit further down the coast the policy in terms of erosion is "managed defeat".

Yet another picture of the water pipe. In this one you can see quite a lot of water coming out of the pipe, both at the end and in the middle. This seems to be a marketing issue - if you want people to come to the beach it would be better not to remind them of how much crud goes into the sea - or perhaps they don't want people on this bit of beach!

After lunch we then followed our usual patterns of entertainment with some pebble collecting and throwing. We have a family game where someone builds a small pile of pebbles and then you all try to hit the pile by throwing pebbles - exciting eh! After the excitement of the beach we then did let the train take the strain. We drove back up to the outskirts of Holt, market town set back a few miles from the coast and caught the Poppy Line to Sheringham. As I mentioned earlier there seemed to have been loads of railway lines in the Norfolk area once upon a time - well the 1940s according to the map. The North Norfolk Railway (or Poppy Line) makes use of a short stretch of one of those closed railway lines to run both Steam trains and vintage diesels between Holt and Sheringham as a Heritage Railway. Most recently they have also reconnected their line back to the national network by re-instating an occasional use level crossing in Sheringham.

The line was part of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway which once covered the "map of Norfolk". There appear to be aspirations, or should that be plans, to restore and make use of more of the disused railway lines in the area with the Norfolk Orbital Railway. This is the view down the line form Holt - it was our train arriving to take us to Sheringham. It is the LMS Stanier Class 5 - 44767 George Stephenson, currently on loan from the Great Central Railway, running a Heritage Line around Loughborough.

I chose this as our route into Sheringham, partly to avoid the crowds and get somewhere to park and partly because of the beautiful coastal views. The round trip is only around 10.5miles, with a stop at Weybourne station and a request stop at Kelling Heath but the train travels at a sedate speed so you get good views. They will also carry bicycles as well in the good van so can be incorporated into a pleasant tour of the area. I have not taken a bike on this train, I have cycled from Cambridge to Cromer and then caught the train back via Norwich a few times though.

Some para-gliders were taking advantage of the steady winds blowing along the coast to fly around the area. This one is flying above the coastal path on the outskirts of Sheringham.

Sheringham was packed - we walked down to the sea-front - a massive concrete construction that although modern would have seemed more appropriate to the Second World War. The beach was popular with Life Guards on duty and mainly swimmers with a few people surfing as well. Another para-glider above the Coastguards look out. I assume that is what it is anyway, although a quick search throws up Sheringham Coastwatch which seems to use a different building at a higher elevation.

The view of the sea at Sheringham.

The concrete emplacements flood defences have had some art added since the last time we visited. There are various trails depicting the life of the seaside town.

The massive concrete walls have had a few fish added to them - there are whales as well.

We then strolled back up through the busy town to the station and caught the train back to Holt. Where I then drove back to Cambridge - surprisingly the drive back was easy, despite the busyness of the area we had no hold ups. It would have been nicer to have travelled back by train. IN fact it would have been possible - Cambridge to Norwich, Norwich to Sheringham (via Cromer) and then the Poppy Line to Weybourne and Holt. Unfortunately the journey from Cambridge to Sheringham can take 3.5 hours plus compared with the car journey of a little over an hour. I would have struggled to persuade my family that it was worth it. (Seven hours plus on a train versus 2.5 hours in a car!)