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@Fox
Yesterday, courtesy of 4 complimentary tickets from First Capital Connect, I took the 7.45 train to King's Lynn for a trip into rural North Norfolk with laner, spybot and dropout. We headed out on National Cycle Route 1 and a few lanes, which provided a nearly entirely traffic free ride out to Sandringham. It was colder than I expected to be honest, and I was glad of the hood on my Swrve Milwaukee jacket over my cap. I secretly hoped to see the Queen walking the corgis around the estate so I could doth my aforementioned Campag head gear, but all we saw was a horsey woman on her mobile driving a green Land Rover...
[ame]http://ridewithgps.com/routes/848095[/ame
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From Sandringham we headed up through some pleasant lanes before turning towards the coast and riding up to the edge of the wash, where we had a quick photo opportunity on the beach.
We then followed the coast up to Hunstanton - on the land side of the sea defence, but down a rather bumpy off road track full of potholes, and had a quick look at the old lighthouse - home of the world's first parabolic reflector, installed in 1776 - before turning inland, doing another short off road stretch then stopping 31 miles in at Sedgeford for a rather good pub lunch of roast pheasant - mine showed its authenticity by containing a small piece of shot. This was only the second pub the ride passed, the other was at 38 miles in and after we passed that things got even more rural...
I don't think I've ever ridden anywhere so empty. We saw curlews, kites, oyster catchers, vast pig cities, huge piles of mangelwurzels (for the pigs, presumably), Vs of migratory geese, fields full of geese, more pheasants and partridges than I've ever seen, and most excitingly, a herd of white fallow deer in the grounds of Houghton Hall:
The lanes seemed to go on forever, and as the miles clocked up it got colder, darker, and started raining. I then regretted somewhat planning a route with some significant off road bits in the last ten miles, mainly because I wanted to go past the ruins of Bawsey Church, a local landmark. By the time we hit the last few miles of off road tracks (which were sandy, full of large puddles, muddy, slippy, the lot, sometimes all at once) it was pitch black, and my Exposure joystick wasn't really bright enough. I was envious of laner's new Vision 1! The sand was the worst - there were a few toppling overs/falling off and we had to push through the worst of it - which was at least half a mile. It was very atmospheric though as we finally rode past the silhouette of the ruined church, although by then it was about 5pm. This photo shows the track we came down from the church (in daylight though):
I've rarely been more glad to get back to civilisation, although the final few miles back into King's Lynn weren't exactly pleasant due to traffic, and the fact we were all cold, tired and wet. It took two cups of tea each in the station buffet and the 1 and a 1/2 hour train journey back to London to properly warm us up, dry us out and make us feel human again.
I have learnt a lot about not planning routes down lanes you can't check out on Streeview in areas you don't know. And I think I need to wash my bike :)
A good way to end the year though. Happy New Year everyone - here's to lots more miles in 2012!