Day 306: Holkham to Sheringham
Distance: 21.95 miles
Ascent: 1499 feet
Weather: Sunny
Accommodation: Richard Jefferson’s House (Kindly Offered)
Originally I had planned to walk straight from Holkham the mile and a half or so to Wells-next-the-Sea along the road as I hate retracing my steps, which I would have to do If I headed back down Lady Anne’s Drive. But yesterday evening I had decided this would be cutting of a tiny bit of coast so I was going to have to head back down Lady Anne’s Drive and along the coast path to Wells which would add an extra mile and a half on. I had arranged to meet up in Wells at 8:40 so I now had to leave quite early.
I had a quick but nice breakfast in The Victoria Inn and was on my way about 7:45. The weather was great again today and the walk back down Lady Anne’s Drive and then following the coast path behind the fir trees to the embankment overlooking the lifeboat station was lovely. From here it was a simple walk up the embankment to Wells, which is a lovely village/town and in its harbour it had a very impressive tall ship called The Albatross. I met Emma (a uni friend) and Tris here who would kindly be joining for the walk today.
We set off along a mixture of embankments and slightly muddy trails with the saltmarshes on our left and after passing a small boat yard in Morston we were soon in Blakeney. Here Richard Jefferson who is kindly putting me up for my rest day, joined for a café stop, he played fives at Cambridge exactly 50 years before I did. We had a lovely little tea stop before we said goodbye to Richard whom we would be seeing again at the end of the day.
We headed back onto the embankment and essentially did a 3 mile curve until we reached Cley-next-the-Sea, this was a lovely stretch and incredibly popular with other walkers to. Emma and Tris kindly got supplies for a picnic in Cley in a very quaint/posh little shop and then we were soon on our way. We passed the Cley Windmill which is very impressive and sits confidently on the edge of the marshes and in fact can be hired out.
The path took us down to the beach and slightly to my surprise then joined the shingle beach (I had expected a path just behind the beach.) This as always was much tougher going and the noise of all 3 of us trudging along the shingle was quite loud. We stopped for our picnic after a couple of miles and considering it is November we couldn’t have had better picnic conditions and the food was lovely
The path along the pebble beach slowly began to climb onto some low cliffs near Weybourne and the going got much easier again. With the sun slowly beginning to set this last stretch was lovely with views back from where we had come as we slowly climbed up. There was one steep climb just half a mile before Sheringham, but at the top next to the Lookout Station we sat on a bench for 5 minutes and just enjoyed the view.
We strolled into Sheringham just after 4 and headed along the promenade until we met Richard near the carpark. It had been great walking with Emma and Tris whom I said goodbye to here (though would be seeing them tomorrow) and then Richard drove me the short distance to his lovely house.
After Richard had cooked me a great dinner, it was not long till I was heading to bed surprisingly tired. I think some of the tiredness may be due to a slight back injury that was triggered by just standing up from the loo in Briarfields the other day, it is not too bad but think my body is slightly compensating for it whilst walking so my left knee and hip have been slightly aching due to it.
A lovely day in the sun, with great scenery, nice villages, great company and am being looked after royally by Richard for my rest day.
