July 5, 2012
Ludham, Happisburgh and North Walsham
game over
My octogenarian aunt is up before us and cooks us a full English breakfast. It’s been decades since we’ve seen each other and she looks at me as though she were looking at her late brother – my dad. I guess our features are slightly similar.
A Victorian memorial in the centre of Acle points the way towards Yarmouth and Norwich, but we want to go to a village called Ludham, basically to the north. It means we need to ride towards Yarmouth, but not for long.
The road is a bit fast but it’s not too far to the junction and we venture down a lane to where there are boats moored on the Broads. A man in a yard doesn’t recognize the windmill that Frank Patterson drew and after an hour wandering down a track overgrown with nettles, we give up. The mill must have vanished.
The main village of Ludham is cute and we find a café serving cream teas and sit inside and treat ourselves. Later, at a Tesco in the nearby village of Stalham, we buy some drinks and have fruit and yogurt.
Patterson also drew a windmill near here and we ride towards the river Ant to find it.
Again it’s hard to locate the exact spot and although we come across a windmill, the vista is slightly different. I take a snap anyway before we make our way back to the main road and head northeast until a junction where a back lane offers more tranquil, carefree riding.
Happsiburg is our next goal - another spot Patterson sketched - and as we arrive at the edge of the village, the sun comes out and we ride down a track leading to a red and white lighthouse, then turn back.
The village church is easy to find. The road network in front of it has changed slightly since the drawing and it's now a T junction rather than a bend. The wooden building that Patterson drew has become a more permanent looking home.
As luck would have it, the church's high tower is open to the public today, so we pay the admission fee and make our way carefully up the narrow, spiral stone stairs that lead to the top. It's a precarious trek - the stone steps are steep and if you were to slip, you’d likely break a leg or worse.
From the square, flat roof we can clearly see the lighthouse and the beach, and there's a caravan park nearby, while closer, near the junction, is a nice-looking pub. A man on the roof who's keeping watch tells us that Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle visited it and penned a story during his stay there.
Once we've clambered back down, we try to call in for a quick drink, but as it's well gone lunch, the place has locked its doors. Shame.
Signs point to lanes designated as ‘quiet’ and they're prefect for cycling - narrow and devoid of traffic. We pass through villages which are just a few houses and our plan is to get a train back to Norwich from a place called Gunton. It takes us a while to get there, as the network of routes confuses us.
As we finally pedal up to the station, a train trundles by and then the timetable states that most trains don’t stop, so we ride to the nearest station – North Walsham - down the line. There's just enough time to make it with the next departure in about an hour.
Onboard, it seems a long journey back to Lincoln, interrupted by a couple of changes and numerous stops and it's midnight when we arrive.
Thankfully we have tomorrow to sort out the bikes and stuff before we flying back to Taiwan.
Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 3,905 km (2,425 miles)
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