Touring Norfolk in a motorhome

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Day 17: transfer to Hickling Green

Route: coastal road from Cromer to Sea Palling

Distance:

Stop offs – Walcot - Happisburgh, Sea Palling,

Campsite: Pine Cones, Hickling Green -  £16 p night, grass pitch and EHU

 

After stocking up on provisions at Morrisons in Sheringham, we drive the coastal road through Overstand and Mundersley.

And at Walcot, where the road runs alongside the beach, we come to a stop. We park up Bryony, prepare breakfast and sit there admiring the most stunning beach views. Golden sands stretch away either side of us punctuated regularly by wooden groynes of a zig-zag design. The geographer within me immediately goes into analytical overdrive. All the countless years I have taught beach erosion and management using examples from this stretch of coastline amongst others; and here in front of me, groynes, a sea wall, revetments and beach sand nourishment. Behind us, across the road engineers are digging the drainage ditches. All this coastal management scenery against a backdrop of big open dark stormy skies and crashing waves. Splendid stuff. The subsequent beach walk can only be described as ‘refreshingly bracing’; very, very bracing!  Parking along that seafront stretch is for free by the way.

Then onwards down the road to Waxham Barn, the UK’s largest medieval thatch barn. A very impressive structure as is the coffee and the ‘Norfolk shortbread’! As the picture shows don’t think shortbread, think giant scone but less dense and crumblier. Delicious! You can go in the barn for free if you have purchased something from the café. The car park is small and we had to park close to the coach turning point.

I cannot begin to describe the geographical ecstasy derived from visiting Happisburgh. This is the ‘definitive’ case study of coastal erosion and mismanagement. I could bore you with the details but the captions below the photos will suffice. It is a good beach walk! And remember, some of the houses now very close to the cliffs can’t be sold for £1!! Yes, you read that right!

Happisburgh, a community that has been falling into the sea for decades

Despite serious investment in coastal defences such as rip rap

Where cliffs literally crumble and collapse due to a unique combination of geology

The remains of old sewer systems which have collapsed on to the beach in times gone by and been broken up and carried out to sea 

Where roads literally lead to 'nowhere'

And cliff top houses lie abandoned because people cannot get insurance for house or contents and no one wants to buy them; a true negative equity trap

Where porous sandstone layers overlie imprevious clay and so rainwater percolates down through the former but cannot penetrate the clay. 

So it runs out of the cliff between the layers causing gullying. The layers above the clay also begin to store water and gain weight and so when the sea hits the base collapse

There have been revetments, groynes, rip rap - none of it has survived the north sea storms 

There is a community car park right on the cliff tops near the light house. It has no height restrictor barriers and you can get a motorhome in there. We parked so that the bike rack was over a grass strip area with our back to the lighthouse. There is also a toilet block there as well. Note the approach road to the car park is narrow!

 

Pine Cones, a Caravan and Camping certificated location is a wonderful site. Owned by Heddwyn and Debbie, they have turned it into an amazing wildlife sanctuary. Beehives, pond, grass meadows, wild flower planting for all our pollinators, a place where barn owls swoop and buzz the vans at night. As I sit here typing, a mother pheasant is shepherding her brood of 11 chicks under our van and into the long grass behind us. There is space for 6 units and we all face out onto the wild grass/flower meadow. Tall trees give it a sheltered feel. The village pub is five minutes’ walk away. The Whispering Reeds boat yard is a 20-minute walk along quiet lanes where you can hire a launch or a canoe for a few hours or a day. There is a National Nature Reserved down the road and you are 15 minutes from Hickling Broad.

After setting up we cycle down to the ‘Whispering Reeds Boat Yard’ where we hire a launch for four hours for two days’ time. On a tip from the yard owner, we then cycle down the gravel track next to the yard, nicknamed locally as ‘Millionaires Row’. Clearly an appropriate label, for on the left are the most stunning thatched houses and big green front lawns. Across the gravel track are the private wooden thatched little boat houses belonging to these houses and then the cuts through the reeds into the wider broad beyond. Spectacular scenery. Further on is the turning down to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust site at Hickling Green, which gives you access out onto the surrounding marshes.

All in all, an astounding day – coastal erosion, coastal defences and management, coastal mismanagement, cliff erosion, ancient barns, extraordinarily beautiful houses, an old traditional Broads boatyard and some lovely wooden boats. I was in heaven all day!

Useful websites:

Waxham Barn  https://www.nhbt.org.uk/properties/waxham-great-barn-grade-i/

Pine Cones https://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/campsites/uk/norfolk/hickling/pinegrove/

Happisburgh http://happisburgh.org.uk/

Whispering Reeds Boat Yard  http://www.whisperingreeds.net/

Norfolk Broads  https://www.visitthebroads.co.uk/

Hickling Green   http://www.tournorfolk.co.uk/hickling.html

Norfolk Wildlife Trust https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-in-norfolk/nature-reserves/reserves/hickling-broad-and-marshes