After the rain
After leaving North Norfollk, Deepdale Backpackers and Sea Palling behind, we headed towards Lowestoft.
Where it rained – a little at first that ensured we wore jackets for the walk to the pub on our first night there, but then the heavens opened overnight, a move that meant that we went nowhere during the first day in the town and ended up reading books on our respective tablets and having tea, coffee and snacks in our room and the lounge of Hotel Katherine.
After another walk to the pub for our evening meal, we checked out the forecast for the next day – no rain, so we ventured to Southwold, a town we’ve visited a few times and a one which provides good photo opportunities.
There’s quite a bit to see and do in Southwold, but I won’t spoil it as deserves to be visited and explored in order to get a feel for the place and what’s on offer. Yes, we couldn’t get served in one of the pubs, but that was down to the Covid restrictions at the time and how busy the pub’s outdoor seating was on a nice sunny day.
There’s plenty of places to shop that will appeal to the hipster, but also places that are more down to earth. We make a habit of visiting RNLI shops when we see them as it’s a charity worth supporting and one that doesn’t generally go for high prices for diaries, calendars, t-shirts and bags of fudge.
Further east…
When we were planning this trip, we had two options to get from Burnham Deepdale to our next stop Lowestoft.
One was cross country and the other was to follow the coastline as much as possible, so that was the choice.
Why did we pick Sea Palling as a stopping off point for lunch/leg stretch?
Largely because I’d seen a newspaper article extolling the virtues of the area, so Sea Palling was entered into the route planner as a stopping off point rather than Cromer, a place that we’d been to on several occasions.
Lunch was a pure and simple affair for us at the cafe pictured above after which we headed up to the Lifeboat station and onto the beach.
It was a grey day, so fleeces/soft shells were more suitable than t-shirts.
As I’m not much good walking on soft sand, Caroline went off for a longer walk on the beach whilst I stuck to more supportive areas to take photos.
Although a tractor was working on the beach, it hadn’t removed the dead seal pup that was lying on the sand – I did warn one or two people about this, but that was largely because the adults had small children in tow (an image of said seal is on this post, but one from a distance rather than a close-up).
Would we go back to Sea Palling? I’m not sure as there’s more places on the Norfolk coastline that we haven’t explored as yet along with a few around the Norfolk Broads – time will tell!
More on Wednesday!
Still looking east
Today’s post is a quick one, as there’s things to do and people to talk to…
After leaving Normous Newark behind, we headed to our usual bolt-hole in North Norfolk, Deepdale Backpackers at Burnham Deepdale. We’d booked an ensuite room, but the communal areas – kitchen, lounge – were closed due to Covid restrictions, so we were eating outside at meal times.
We’d booked a rail trip on The Poppy Line between Holt and Sheringham for our first day down there and whilst I would normally post pics about that day on here, guess who forgot to take both cameras with him! D’oh!!!
I didn’t forget them on our second day out though – a short ride on the Wells & Walsingham narrow gauge route followed by an afternoon in Wells and on and around the beach…
Back on Monday!
Looking east…
Changing holiday plans isn’t something we normally do.
Last September’s two week trip was planned out and accommodation booked way before it was due to happen, but fortunately we’d made a savvy move by booking most of our overnight stays through booking.com which had free cancellation as an added incentive, just in case Covid rules were instigated at short notice.
The original plan for last September was to head up to Scotland and use trains and buses to get into the Highlands to explore the area and get to places such as Mallaig and Kyle Of Lochalsh by rail.
Why didn’t that trip happen? Not because of Covid, but a wedding…
Not ours, but Caroline’s son and his fiancee – who live in London.
The timing was going to be a bit close, so we decided to postpone it and cancel bookings in order to look for a break closer to London so Caroline was in striking distance for when the date/venue were finalised.
East Anglia became the location of choice, largely because we’ve been to both North Norfolk and Suffolk before, but we’ve never done the full circuit…
The process for cancelling the Scottish trip and booking (again by booking.com) the stays for the new plan took just four hours from start to finish – our favourite backpacker hostel’s ensuites in North Norfolk, a very good small hotel in Lowestoft, a chain hotel in Bury St. Edmunds, a coaching inn near IWM Duxford Air Museum and another chain hotel in Cambridge.
Our earlier than usual start on that first Sunday was down to our first port of call – Normous Newark Autojumble at the Showground on the outskirts of Newark which is next door to Newark Air Museum.
What’s an Autojumble? Think of a very large car boot sale devoted to predominately items for cars, motor bikes, memorabilia, bits for bikes and books, models, clothing and tools and you won’t be too far wrong.
We’d seen footage from Normous Newark on ITV4’s Junk & Disorderly TV show where presenters Henry Cole & Sam Lovegrove find things, fix them up and then flog them at other Autojumbles.
There was no sign of the dynamic duo though, but lots to look at and ponder on as we wandered around, had coffee and then wandered some more. We left empty handed, but now we know what’s what, a return visit could be in order when our Skoda has an empty boot to take any purchases!
Once lunch was taken care of, it was time to head for Deepdale Backpackers in Burnham Deepdale to find our room for the night. As the kitchen was closed due to Covid restrictions, we bought snack stuff and beer & cider for consumption later in the open air in the courtyard below our room.
As we had another early start on Monday morning, an early night was had, largely because we had a steam train to catch after finding our breakfasts!
wisepacking 
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