Sea Palling Walk

This was the invite from Joyce...

"Monday 18th November, Robert is leading a 15 mile walk along the Norfolk Coast for us. Park on roads in Mundesley ( Goodwin Rd or Hilda Rd NR11 8BA) , opposite Coronation Hall and library. [N.B. See comment a the end of the post for better suggestions of where to park]. These roads are about 5 minutes from bus stop. Meet at lookout station (GR TG314367) on Beach Road just after 9.00am for 9.15 bus to Sea Palling. Approx £4.50 fare. We shall then walk to Waxham and turn around and walk along the beach/cliff top back towards Mundesley. There is a morning coffee/tea stop at Cart Gap (Small Sticks Café). Once we reach Mundesley, we continue on the beach towards Trimingham and then returning back to the start along the cliff top coastal path. This walk show varying landscapes of Norfolk coastal from dunes to high cliffs towards Trimingham, and changes to both the beach with cliff erosion, plus some interesting buildings."

A great plan. I'd never been to that part of Norfolk before so yesterday I checked on Google and it told me my journey time should be less than 1 1/2 hours. I set off at about 7:10 am, which should have given me plenty of time. Unfortunately my satnav in my car didn't know about the new Broadland Northway east of Norwich and took me through the city centre. As I approached the A47 outside Norwich just before 8am it was showing I would reach my destination before 9am, but... aaargh! Traffic! The bus passed me just as I reached Goodwin Rd.... Plan B. After dashing to the bus-stop to find the bus gone, I followed Joyce's suggestion and drove to Sea Palling, catching up the bus about a mile before it got there. But then I had to park and get my boots and coat on. Thanks for waiting for me guys!

This was our route.

We started by heading towards Waxham before turning round and returning along the path north-west... straight into the stiff wind. We walked past Mundesley and returned along the cliff top as planned. On the way, I checked the bus times. Oh no! There were no buses back to Sea Palling arriving after about 2:30! Joyce kindly gave me a lift back to my car after the end of the walk. Thanks, Joyce! I owe you one, and thanks to Jane and Robert who also offered me a lift.

Anyway, here are a few of my photos.

We started in Sea Spalling passing these nice houses.

We heading towards the sun at the start.

As the tide was in we couldn't go along all the beach. The sea was pretty rough too.

But after a bit we were able to go onto the sand.

We turned around at Waxham by the Shangri-La House.

Robert told us all about it and about Waxham Hall and Barn, but this was a close as we got to them.

We returned to Sea Palling via the other side of the dunes.

But we were soon back on the beach. There were a couple of intrepid kite-surfers out. One of them was lifted into the air a couple of times, but I failed to get of photo of that.

We could see Happisburgh Lighthouse and Church from a long way off.

We were forced inland again. Some of the streets had some huge puddles.

We stopped for coffee, as planned, at Small Sticks Café at Cart Gap. The coffee was very good and the menu looked appetising.

We walked along the cliff top towards Happisburgh and had some fine views.

Happisburgh Manor is interesting - it is built to an unusual butterfly plan, with wings at 45 degrees to the core of the building.

A bit further on we some dramatic evidence of the coastal erosion. We had to divert into the field to keep away from the edge here where the path had fallen into the sea.

At Walcott a big investment had been done in a sandscaping project to try and halt the erosion. It gave us some nice beach to walk on.

The scheme is also to protect the coast by Bacton Gas terminal, which my late father-in-law helped design. Is this where one of the pipes comes ashore? Jane remarked that a lot of the sand at this end of the scheme had been washed away already.

There were a few showers about but we didn't get rained on much. And there were rainbows...

...and some lovely skies.

We saw lots of sea foam.

We had to do bit of clambering along the beach where the sand had been washed away. Jane said she was able to just step over this only a week ago.

Eventually we climbed up from the beach to walk back to Mundesley.

And here we are back in Mundesley.

My car was parked not far from here... for a few minutes. But now I needed a lift back to Sea Palling to get to it. Thanks Joyce!

What a great walk! Thanks Robert for leading us and to Joyce and Jane for the company. We still need to join up with what we did previously. We will do Cromer to Mundesley some time, I'm sure.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our walk here on MapMyWalk.