As if to celebrate my final day on the Greater Ridgeway (also called the Great Chalk Way) the skies were a deep blue, cross-crossed by decaying jet streams. Leaving Ringstead, the village where I had spent the night, I noticed a sign at the gate of the church stating it was open. Churches advertising they were open seemed a trend today, although due to time constraints (I had a long day ahead) I only visited this one. It seemed appropriate to give thanks in God's house for my success so far despite my dodgy knee. Inside the church was a mural of all the ills of the world in the 1970s, not so different to those today including drug addiction, inter-racial strife and poverty. The policemen in the picture seemed ambiguous, were they to protect or threaten?
Skylarks were singing as I headed north on my final short section of the Peddars Way. A buzzard flew overhead. Passing a lady looking through binoculars I asked her what she had seen. In addition to 13 hares she reeled off a long list of birds from her notebook that she had spotted today. The number made me feel ashamed of my lack of observation. In my defence I lacked a pair of binoculars, although I would not have recognised most of the birds she named even if I could see them. She pointed out one in the field. It looked like a clod of earth to me, then three of them rose into the air and flew off, maybe they heard us speaking of them.
After another barely intelligible verse on a slab of stone I reached the end of the Peddars Way and my walk across England on the chalk of the Greater Ridgeway. An anti-climax, just a finger post pointing back the way I had just walked and signs to the east and west for the Norfolk Coast Path. As the Norfolk Coast Path technically starts in Hunstanton I set off in that direction to discover "Sunny Hunny". I walked on hard sand between the golf course and salt marsh, then along the top of the beach and behind blue beach huts (I later saw one in an estate agent's window priced at £80,000)! Although I had hoped to have continued along the beach all the way to Hunstanton, admiring the pink and white chalk cliffs, my arrival coincided with high tide. The sea reached up to the jumbled boulders of old rock falls at the base of the cliffs, forcing me to follow the official route of the Norfolk Coast Path along the cliff top on a wide strip of grass in front of housing. I noticed there were multiple lines of fencing by the cliff edge. I assumed as the edge eroded away they erected a fence progressively further back.
The Norfolk Coast Path officially starts at a memorial to our "glorious dead", those killed in 20th century wars. Opposite a small slab commemorated those who died, glorious or not, in the 1953 floods, wreaths were placed beneath, memories still strong, whole families dying. With rising sea levels due to climate change I wondered if more catastrophic floods were likely in the future. After a coffee, muffin and stocking up on supplies in the nearby high street I returned to the War Memorial to start the 84 miles of the Norfolk Coast Path.
Arriving at Holme, the first village on the route, a sign stated that the boardwalk was unsafe at a point two kilometres or so away and the path was therefore closed with "immediate effect". Details of a diversion were posted. I contemplated ignoring the closure and finding some way through, such closures are often unnecessary if you are prepared to go off trail onto rough ground for a bit, the authorities err on the side of caution. However, if I could not safely get through I would have to return, adding four kilometres to my already long day. So reluctantly I followed the many diversion signs, yellow arrows on laminated paper, which took me over fields, well inland. Not my idea of a coastal walk. I was disappointed especially as it added more distance to my day. At the end of the diversion the coastal path ran along the top of a bank, part of the sea defences against another big flood. Salt marshes lay on one side and flooded fields the other. This was much more interesting especially as I could see several species of birds and wildfowl of which I could at least identify a curlew with its long curved beak and a lapwing, black and white with its distinctive crest.
My enjoyment of this coastal area was terminated by another trip inland, this time on an official section of the Norfolk Coast Path. Presumably the path's creators could not negotiate a coastal route. So it was fields and pig farms again. However the final part of my day was an improvement, a board walk running behind Brancaster and adjacent villages. To my left the marsh spread out, sometimes with large beds of tall reeds, waving their seed heads at eye level, sometimes with winding creeks and lower level vegetation. By now, as dusk was approaching the tide was out, boats, large and small, old and not quite so old lay stranded on the grey mud of the creek bed, the water reduced to a few small patches. Some smaller boats and faded canoes were pulled into the reeds or onto rough roads. Behind me the sun was setting, hidden from me by houses, but reflecting off windows ahead of me, shiny orange rectangles ablaze with light. Turning frequently I could see the deep pink and grey clouds in the western sky (which my camera refused to reproduce)!
Night was falling as I reached my campsite, erecting my small tent by head torch on a neat patch of grass by trimmed hedges. I stopped at the nearest pub for dinner, one of those places where they charge a lot of money for a modest portions arranged in pretty patterns on a plate. However, the beer and warmth has made me content and as I write this I am satisfied with all I have achieved.
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