Fancy A Walk?
Me Too. Let's Get Some Sea Air...
The beach at Old Hunstanton. See that horizon? That’s where we’re headed (Christine Matthews/geograph)
Fancy a bit of a stroll?
Me too. The weathers too nice to stay indoors welded to a keyboard. Let’s go and let some of Norfolk’s biggest skies illuminate us on our wanderings.
I’m talking about the Norfolk Coast Path.
Heaven really is a place on earth.
The Norfolk Coast Path (NCP) invites you to immerse yourself in up to 84 miles of gentle walking, starting at Hunstanton on towards the west of the county, meandering its way east in a manner that suggests that, like it, you should never feel rushed to do anything, to a point a few miles south of Great Yarmouth, namely Hopton-on-Sea.
I know, I know. 84 miles. So maybe we won’t go all the way, not today anyway.
Let me cherry pick a segment for you then.
How about dawdling our way from Hunstanton through to Brancaster Staithe?
That’s about eight miles or thereabouts.
Perfect.
The first part of the walk takes in Hunstanton’s famous cliffs before making its way round to Old Hunstanton beach, a view of the Le Strange Arms hotel and a horizon that is, almost always, bereft of visitors, with most choosing to occupy that line of coast a bit further west and adjacent to the fairground and promenade in Hunstanton itself.
Falling away to the sea. The cliffs at Hunstanton (Helen Steed/geograph)
Puzzling really, as the beach in Old Hunstanton is a joy as are the sunsets that light up the shallow waters of The Wash in a spectacular and unforgettable manner.
Now we’re heading due east and onto Holme-next-Sea.
We’ll pass a short stretch of pine trees and the site of the famous Sea Henge, an ancient Bronze Age timber circle that, after being briefly exposed in 1998, was swiftly removed from its home on the grounds that it needed to be ‘protected’ from the elements-despite the fact it had managed to cope with them very well for the preceding 4,000 years.
Imprisoned. Sea Henge cruelly under lock, key and glass @ King’s Lynn Museum (John M/geograph)
‘Preservation’ indeed.
As we leave Holme-next-Sea in our sandy wake and approach Thornham, we’ll espy a different landscape evolving before our eyes, a combination of muddy creeks and samphire laden salt marsh, a place where smugglers abounded and where there is magic in every dawn and dusk, the creep of an incoming tide and the accompanying clusters of Black tailed Godwits a twin symphony that Benjamin Brittan could have set to music.
The Coal Barn at Thornham Harbour seen across the creeks (Pauline M/geograph)
We now need to head inland temporarily before happily heading back to the call of the coast.
Thus Titchwell follows.
A stark, wide open stretch of beach and infinite maw of a sky, a place where, even on the very busiest of tourist days, you might well find yourself alone and in the sort of contemplative place that solitude induces.
A busy morning on Titchwell beach (Richard Humphrey/geograph)
Embrace it. For they are rare moments in our otherwise tangled lives.
If you are fortunate enough to be approaching Brancaster as the tide is coming in then please, tarry awhile as I most certainly will be, for this is my very favourite time and place on the planet, the early evening return of the sea to the marshes and creeks in and around Brancaster.
The marshes at Brancaster. Soaked in magic. (Hugh Venables/geograph)
Whilst that tide may race up the damp sands of the beach in the manner of some great viscous beast stalking its prey, its progress along the muddy creeks seems deceptively slower but be fooled not, they will swiftly fill to the brim to a cacophonous soundtrack of excited wildfowl and, as you now approach the harbour at Brancaster Staithe, the jink-jink-jink sound of metal rigging on wooden mast amidst the scattered sea faring craft moored up on the hard.
If I could, one day, return to the earth as a watchful guardian spirit, this is where I would choose to roam.
As twilight kisses the day goodnight, take your leave of the harbour and creeks and seek a good night’s sleep before we resume our meandering way on the morrow.
And dream of the sea and magical things…