From Somerleyton to Oulton Broad

At last, a free day and decent weather, so we were able to head back to the Angles Way. We had a most enjoyable short walk, though rather muddy in places (not surprising, given the recent heavy rain). We left home just before 8am and despite being behind a slow-moving vehicle on the A146, we were parked at Oulton Broad North Station (note that there are only a few spaces here) by about 9.30am. There was plenty of time to walk down to Oulton Broad (an attractive place, separated from Lake Lothing and the sea by Mutford Lock and lifting/swing bridges for pedestrians, cars and trains) and back before the 9.54 train back to Somerleyton. We were only on the train for 6 minutes; just enough time to buy our tickets, for the princely sum of £2.10 each.

At Somerleyton, we walked back to the boatyard, where Christopher Cockerill was working when he invented the hovercraft. Then we retraced our steps to the station, followed a road for a short distance and then took a track to Wadding Wood, above Somerleyton Marshes. From here, for several miles, we were walking close to the boundary of the marshes and the higher ground that abuts them; we were usually on the higher ground but occasionally we descended to the edge of the marsh. It was beautiful.

Eventually we passed the pretty Nobb Cottages, with snowdrops in the garden, then took a path through pretty woodland close to the outfall of Flixton Decoy, and emerged onto a track past Camps Heath Nature Reserve. We chatted to a pleasant man selling very reasonably priced plants from his house then reached Oulton Church, which is dedicated to St Michael. It's a slightly odd place and investigation later in the day revealed that it was once a cruciform church with a tower in the middle, but the trancepts are no longer present and the tower has been rebuilt. There's also an interesting little diatribe on the Suffolk Churches website - given what is said there, it is perhaps just as well that we didn't attempt to get a key to get inside the Church, given our distinctly tatty attire!

We took a footpath past some curious cows then followed roads through the suburb of Oulton Broad. This is the posh part of Lowestoft with big houses and occasional glimpses of the lake of Oulton Broad at the bottom of their gardens. We retraced our steps to where we'd been this morning and ate our lunch watching the dinghy racing.

After lunch we pottered around Lowestoft a bit, and drove down to Kirkley - home and final resting place of Gertrude Spedding (my grandfather's first wife). We were home soon after 4pm.

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