Across East Anglia by bicycle
Castle Acre, Norfolk
A ride from London through Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk
Sometimes I am wearied by the ease of my cycling life, with its routines, club runs and well-tried routes ridden in good company. At such moments I call out for the new and unexpected, for a struggle over unfamiliar terrain along with a trial-by-the-elements. What I needed I said to the gods, was a little grit in my eye.
The gods, they heard my cry!
And so it was, that I sat, far from home, in the fading light of day on a triangle of sun-dried grass beside an old oak tree, wondering what to do next. Salt encrusted my clothing, the water bottles were empty and I’d eaten what food I’d brought. My last inner tube had hissed out its last breath of air and the other two spares were holed and useless. There were still 8 kilometres left of day before I could say it was done.
On the hottest UK day ever recorded, I’d ridden out through London’s back door, over the dried up marshes where the grass was African -Savannah brown, and onto the A13, dubbed the ugliest road in Britain. After some head-drilling kilometres created by the unrelenting pounding of large lorries, I’d turned off and ridden towards the marvel of the East.
Cruise Liners arriving in New York, berth in Manhattan, in Venice they have the Grand Canal to pull-up alongside. In London, cruise ship passengers disembark at Tilbury, one of the poorest and most wretched towns in the kingdom. Near the terminal is a mean little Tudor fort protecting the estuary from invasion, hunkered down in the marshes like a guard dog on a chain.
The Essex marshes beyond the port and fort, are yet to be given cultural value. Yet, it was arguably the most lovely of all the places I cycled through. It was a wild and hauntingly beautiful place where, framed by huge skies, the lonely cries of curlew sang and the tumbling lapwing played.
Some kilometres inland,beyond the soft Essex coast, the route rose over hills, which once had been sea-cliffs. In a previous epoch when the massed eruption of volcanoes had warmed the earth, the polar icecaps had melted and the seas had risen and covered the earth - or at least the bit I’d been cycling over. Once up the punchy climb, the route passed alongside fields of corn, along flower bordered by-ways and through dark-leafed woods. The paths were rough and flinty.
Having heard my cry for a testing day, the gods deemed it appropriate that I should walk the last eight kilometres of the day, dragging a bike whose rear tyre was more off than on. They determined too, that there should be two blisters on both heels, each the size of the 02 dome and that I should arrive in the dark, having failed to find anywhere to stay.
Offers of help were made by strangers passing me slumped in Maldon’s high street and a bed was secured for the night in an out of town chain hotel. A pub kindly extended their cooking hours and put food and beer before me.
Maldon, where I had holed up for the night, did southern England prettiness very well. Famed for its salt and oysters, its harbour was filled with stately Thames barges, their ochre-red sails furled around their beams. After a quick wander whilst the bike was being repaired, I set off over gentle undulations, passing wheat fields, bordered by hedge and wood. Pheasants flew, and peevish crows settled their scores high in the branches of sycamore and ash. A hare lopped across golden stubble and a sparrowhawk patrolled the skies.
Wood-beamed houses, roses in gardens, pubs selling real ale all combined to satisfy my most ardent of English desires. The vales were willow-filled, and billowing grey clouds brought that special English light showering down upon stately homes and tall church towers. At Bury St Edmunds, the gods said, ‘Enough enchantment. Here you will stay’. And that was the end of Day 2.
Day three was a flinty and moody affair. The wooden beams of yesterday gave way to the local stone of flint, which is dark, near black and sharp. Corn gave way to pigs. Huge fields with arching corrugated piggy-homes were scattered between woods of pine and fir. Heavy, flat clouds covered the sky and brought their summer’s rain. It was dark and cold all day. I stopped in Thetford, the birthplace of Thomas Paine to warm up and feed, but the cafe had closed early through lack of trade, so I ate a roll beside the road. Everywhere through the dark pine forests of Thetford notices kept appearing “Keep Out”, “CCTV”. The MoD had firing ranges near by and farms had their agro-industrial sheds from where I heard pigs cry.
Perhaps it was just a louring day, but this part of Norfolk was bilious and sour to ride through. The bike skewed and skittered on sandy trails and roads were long and straight through the silent and gloomy forest. Jackdaws frossicked with their cones, and crows haunted the stone grey skies. Incipient and insistent rain worked its way through my clothing. At Dereham, the NCN 13 finished and time was called on the day.
In the pub that evening where I’d sought warmth and nourishment, I read the on-line words of a Dereham resident who’d described his town as; ‘a rotting corpse full of apathy and yearning’. He’d gone on to write, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’. ‘Go to Norwich’, he concluded.
Kings Lynn was nearer than Norwich, so in a very wet and chilly summer dawn, I set off, passing castles, abbeys dressed in flint and a Royal Palace hidden by gates and trees. I passed field after field of potatoes and others with pigs, whilst chaffinches busied themselves in the hedgerows and sweet chestnuts developed their prickly shells. The roads were smooth and quiet, the hills gentle and nothing much distracted me until I met three ‘Tommys' marching along a sandy path. Harrison, his brother Luke and Jacob a friend, were on a sponsored walk dressed in the uniform of WWII. They were raising money through a weekend sponsored walk, for a memorial to be erected in Norwich cathedral to the 97 men of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, who’d been gunned down in cold blood by the Waffen-SS in France on 27th May 1940.
It seemed right to end this ride in Kings Lynn whose port had once, albeit briefly, rivalled that of London. Like the city, its fringes were ringed with poverty, its centre grandiose and rich. I rode to the Duke’s Hotel to celebrate the completion of my first National Cycle Trail.
The gods had responded to my cry and challenged me with a ‘staycation’ adventure. I removed the grit from my eye and boarded the train for London.
To access the route, click here
To access the photo album of the route, click here