I changed trains at Colchester and unusually a girl asked if I wanted a burger heated up. I've never tried a cold one, but if this is a delicacy in Essex, so be it! I was impressed upon my arrival in Norwich, as the stately station building seemed like a mini version of Lime Street Station in Liverpool. I headed up towards the castle mound, which was quite an incline for the relatively flat county of Norfolk, eventually getting my bearings to pick up the Marriott's Way Heritage Trail, a 26-mile loop named after the chief engineer of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, William Marriott. Apparently M&GN was nicknamed 'muddle and go nowhere' by passengers.
My route passed over the River Wensum on a footbridge and there was a short footpath section through the former railway station at Hellesdon. The scenery was much more diverse than I'd expected, having previously found the western part of Norfolk to be flatter than your average pancake.
At the village of Drayton, Station Road was signed as private, so I took a V-shaped course via the village centre which was very pretty. Initially Marriott's Way continued via a wooded cutting. The bridge over the dual carriageway A1270 marked the half way point to Reepham (pronounced 'reefam') according to the sign. It was then very wooded, with a parallel lane to the right. I stopped for a rest and a guy in a van nearby had a woman's voice on loudspeaker; it was very loud indeed and I wondered if the caller realised she was being broadcast. In this age of data protection perhaps the driver had a duty to inform her!
Beyond was a long wooded descent. There was a detour near Attlebridge where a station is now private. The route still seemed rural when passing industry and an old man gave me a good old fashioned 'how do?' at one point. I soon came to Whitwell and Reepham Station where there is half a mile of restored line. I got a Guinness at the bar and sat on a bench while a group of motorcyclists met up. There is much for the rail enthusiast here. The trail beyond to Reepham itself via the big loop of Themelthorpe had a rougher surface and I read somewhere that this bend that linked two different lines was once the sharpest on the UK network.
I detoured into Reepham, which had a quaint village centre, to use the shop. I then consumed three quarters of a pork pie and an iced coffee drink in the churchyard which once contained three churches. Two remain and appear joined together.
I took a back-street back up to Marriott's Way and then rode the last six miles to Aylsham via Cawston. Aylsham has a very nice market square, and naturally I called into a pub to write up these notes. World Cup football was on TV and a band were setting up and winding wires around a young lady who seemed to be getting in their way. With 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' as a sound-check, my attention was diverted from Ronaldo and chums, although most folk resolutely kept their eyes on the ball.
Upon leaving I walked through the churchyard and got a spring roll in a Chinese restaurant. I then biked to a wood to the south of the town via a suburban cycle way and across a field on a footpath. It was a very comfortable place to camp and I had a brief territorial wander before getting into the sleeping bag.
I awoke at 5.30am. Natural light seems to restore me to a lark's sleeping pattern from the annoyingly impractical owl's hours that I usually gravitate towards. I got up at about 6.30 and rode back to Aylsham town centre, picking up the Bure Valley path which runs beside a narrow gauge railway. This reminded me of the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch railway in Kent, and path and rails share the track bed amenably, unlike the two pigeons that were fighting furiously on a bank. I was unable to intervene in an 'Oi, you two, cut it out!' kind of way as the rails were between me and warring birds. As it leaves the town, the line goes through the only railway tunnel in Norfolk. The path goes over the top.
This path was narrower than yesterday's trail and rougher. There had been a light shower while I was in the sleeping bag, but now it came on quite strong. I headed for the top of a cutting and set my tarpaulin up, preparing for the worst, but it soon eased and I was on my way again.
The route presented me with a long slow climb via Coltishall to Hoveton & Wroxham Station. The main line joins just before the station and there is a book shop on the platform of the narrow gauge station. I found my way to the centre of Hoveton which was awash with tourists and headed for a pub to consume the obligatory breakfast in a conservatory, looking out towards the Broad. After a visit to the tourist info centre, I decided to head for the small village of Spixworth. Crossing the Broad via a bridge, I was then in Wroxham and I had to use the pedestrian crossing to disrupt the endless flow of cars in order to get across the main road onto Church Lane. Eventually, I found myself on a track which became quite bleak and open. Once back on lanes, I phoned my friend Simon Crow, a very nice chap who writes exceedingly gruesome horror novels; he lives in Norwich. I waited for his arrival on a bench in Spixworth, just a few miles north of the city. His fiancée, drove us to a pub about a mile up the road which looked more rustic than the nearest alehouse. The conversation couldn't have been too excruciating as I was kindly given a lift back too!
Reunited with my bike, I continued west along the lanes via Horsham St Faith and Horsford, where I picked up Dog Lane, which turned into another bridleway and became quite rutted through an evergreen forest. It then detoured south to the dual carriageway A1270 and I rode the parallel path. I eventually branched off northward into another wood on a byway. There was a steep climb which I walked up; I wasn't expecting to be relegated to Shanks' pony at all in Norfolk, but this climb was of the 'no messing' variety. The path then continued next to a fenced off compound and went across the middle of a field, more like a footpath than a byway by now, but legal to ride I hasten to add.
I used the lane to get to Attlebridge, but was devastated to find nothing there as I was tired and thirsty. I'm not sure why I am always so surprised to find this! In desperation, I pounded along the main road to the next village - Lenwade. The garage shop was just closing, but just as I thought my ride was descending into farce or starvation, I found a pub a bit further up the road. I had a pint of lemonade and a Cromer crab with salad and warm bread. The landlord was lively and welcoming and the gents' loos were outside (very 'retro').
I then rode down to the common, but it wasn't common enough as the gates were locked, so I headed up a lane back to Marriott's Way and turned east in search of a place to camp. After a few miles I decided to camp at the top of a cutting. As I settled down, I heard a noise which I was a bit worried could be a tree creaking as a large trunk had fallen nearby.
I was back in 'owl mode' as I snoozed until 8.45 the next day, when I packed up and headed east on the cycle way. When I got to Drayton I headed for a café. It was very busy so it took a quite a long time to get each of my two pots of tea, but they gave me extra items with my breakfast which was delicious with black pudding and scrambled egg. Sorry vegans.
I then rode the remaining miles to Norwich, riding a bit of the river path from the end of the trail and chaining my bike up by the bus stops near the cathedral. A young man was going ballistic on his phone at some poor unfortunate soul – not the best intro to the city for me! Eventually I met up with Simon again and he explained to me that there seem to be more 'characters' in Norwich on Sundays than the rest of the week, before showing me the market square where I think I can remember buying a book on interpreting dreams when I was thirteen. Thirty years later they still make little sense but I view them more like free entertainment.
After a visit to a café which seemed church-like inside, we walked up to the castle on top of its mound and had a brief look at the two main shopping centres before gravitating towards a Wetherspoons pub. My father is something of an enthusiast of these pubs; I have yet to come near to his tally but usually relish visiting a branch of the chain that he's yet to discover. Our final place to visit was the cathedral with the grave of Edith Cavell outside. Edith was a British nurse who saved lives on both sides during World War I but was sentenced to death by firing squad for helping 200 Allied prisoners escape from German-occupied Belgium. Not quite on a level with crossing borders to flee a country, my journey home was nevertheless epic, starting at 5pm, with me finally walking through the door of my home just before midnight. This was largely due to some high jinks involving throwing things onto the electric cables. High jinks; low IQ. I had a notion of wanting to visit Colchester, but I didn't mean sitting for two hours on the station in the hope that a train might eventually come along. The café stayed open late to accommodate the masses and consequently saved my sanity. Well, the can of Guinness did at least!
If you enjoy reading the write ups of these trips, there are plenty more to read about in my book, 'Stair Rods and Stars.' The digital editions of most my books are now free, so why not have a look on Kindle, iBooks, etc. and go 'the full cycle?'
