Touring Norfolk in a motorhome

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 Day 24: visiting Burgh Castle, Great Yarmouth and Reedham

On soggy days, walking bleak marshes and cycling flat lands aren’t always that much fun. So, we go exploring in the motorhome.

And, as it happens, the weather forecast proves to be wrong and the weather is considerably brighter than predicted, catching everyone out of course.

Burgh Castle, a roman fort (When does a fort become a castle??) is definitely worth visiting. Only three walls remain but their length and construction give good indications about the size of this fort and the superior construction methods employed by the romans. Tall walls of flint and chert with a mortar mix built up in sections, each layer separated by a layer of either horizontal or vertically angled red tiles.

It is an example of outstanding geographic locational thinking. The key is always to try and imagine what the area would have been like back in AD 300. To do this, strip away all that you can see – vegetation, buildings, street furniture and leave just the landscape features. The river Waveney would have come to the very bottom of the hill on which the fort was built but now, with the passage of the centuries, there are extensive reed beds and the river has migrated some 100 metres away from the hill bottom slope.

We stroll the castle walls, read the informative education boards and then stroll the river path to the Fisherman Inn. Here is a riverside pub with elevated terrace decks and great views along the river and over the floodplain. A strong incoming tide, but families were safely crabbing off the quay below, whilst swallows swooped along the river surface in breath taking aerial acrobatics displays.

The road across the floodplain to Reedham is another one of those narrow but dead straight roads, willow lined and undulating. Rough pasture grass and marshlands extend way into the distance either side, grazed by horses, cattle and sheep. It is a special ecological landscape.

And talking of narrow roads, the road to Reedham proves to be very narrow in places. There are two ways into the quayside area. One has a warning sign about a height restriction of 8’. Ignore it, it refers to a side road, not the quay approach road. There is parking for campervans and motorhomes under 5.5m but anything longer won’t find any spaces. We had to park on Church Street, one road up from the quay, tight alongside a red wall (you will know it when you see it).

With a pub, a tea room and a deli, there were plenty of food and drink places, all with nice views of boats tied up at the quay.

All in all, it was a pleasant day out with some stunning scenery.

 

Postscript:

Whilst out driving today, we discovered a message appearing on the central dash screen. “Change engine oil”. This has caught us out, surprised us. We have only done around 2400 miles in Bryony and we have had her since new (pre-registered in August 2019).

So, we are facing a few conundrums. Do we really have to change the oil? How do we get rid of the message? What happens if we just ignore it for a while? Is our oil already that contaminated after only 2500 miles? Is it actually telling us that a service is due?

The handbook offers little insight!

Clearly, it would seem that the oil needs to be changed based on age and/or mileage. We aren’t reluctant to change the oil. Y father always explained to me as a teenager that annually changing the oil was a good thing. Micro-metal particulates would be flushed out, therefore preventing engine damage. We have made a heavy investment in the motorhome so it pays to look after it carefully. We want to have the log book reflect an accurate record of our service history, and, God forbid, should we ever have to make an insurance claim, we can prove we took care of her well. So, we will contact our local garage and see if they can do it for us in the next few weeks.

Now, how do we reset the central dash to get rid of the message? We found this video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G46aVtyTFo4 

On another forum we found these helpful instructions, which we have yet to do:

“To turn the notification off

•        Ignition on

•        Press accelerator & brake pedal all the way down for 15 seconds

•        You'll notice the display changes

•        Ignition off

On a different forum we follow, someone posted this warning

“If you have your vehicle serviced make sure that they reset the service warning as we found it’s something that you can't do yourself and if you have it on for too long the vehicle will eventually go into limp mode”.

We will add a postscript as to what we find out in the next few weeks on this issue.