Dersingham to Hunstanton

Not surprisingly, Station Road brought us back to the old railway - the same line that we'd been walking along yesterday, though no longer a cycle route and no longer tarmaced - yippee! There were a few dog walkers about as we followed the railway to the north, passing a small wood and Ingoldisthorpe Common, landscape that was familiar from driving along the A149, just to the west.

After crossing a minor road near the Old Hall in Ingoldisthorpe, the old railway line was firmly marked as having no public right of way, but it wasn't immediately obvious where the path went. We are very grateful to a local man in his car who must have seen our puzzled faces and pointed towards the narrow path just to the east of the railway line. We followed this across fields towards Snettisham. Just as you reach the village there is a path along the field edge back towards the railway line (which has now swept round to the west, to get round Lodge Hill) and we could probably have followed that. However we decided not to take the risk, continuing on the public right of way, over the river and past Snettisham Mill, which appears to have been recently converted into a house, and some modern houses on a former coal yard. We emerged onto an older road and turned left, past a warehouse that's another familiar sight from the A149. We crossed the main road and turned up a path which climbed across Snettisham Common to the edge of Lodge Hill.

Lodge Hill is delightful - we were walking through woodland but had good views to the coast. Just before Lodge Hill Farm, the path turned at an angle down to and across the marshes. The route wasn't always entirely clear, though I think we'd have found it. We didn't need to worry too much as we were following another couple who seemed to know the way.

The marshes and the Wash are both birdwatching hotspots (the RSPB Reserve at Snettisham Scalp is just to the south) and we were amused by a twitcher riding along the sea wall on a bicycle. To be fair, he did stop before putting his binoculars to his eyes. We were going to walk along the sea wall, but started by crossing some more marshes for a view of the sea. We were rewarded by a  wonderful wide arc of the Wash, reflecting the beautiful blue of the sky and with views to Hunstanton in the distance.

We returned to the sea wall and followed it through more marshes, overtaking the twitcher and his bicycle (and we no doubt failed to watch lots of interesting birds), with the chalets at Heacham South Beach appearing like a shanty town in the distance. We reached caravan parks and a road and turned left for another view of the sea (and a convenient toilet block and a cafe had we wanted one). We followed a dry, sandy and rather hot track between a caravan park and the sand dunes, thankfully only for a short distance to the next road. Here we crossed the dunes to the promenade, which we followed all the way to Hunstanton.

The concrete promenade was slightly hard on the feet (most unusually, I'd developed a blister) but we made rapid progress and were intrigued by the range of houses, chalets (some quite dilapidated and most painted white) and caravans on stilts to our right. To our left was the beach and the sea, with countless groynes. We got closer to the funfair by the sea at Hunstanton, and Redgate Tower, further inland. There were a few other people about, then we went over a slight rise in the promenade, and suddenly it was crowded. There were views to Hunstanton's famous tricolour cliffs (carrstone, red chalk and white chalk) in the distance.

We passed the familiar tourist attractions - the Sealife Centre and the Oasis swimming pool, then at the entertainment centre where the pier once was, we turned inland across the green, past hundreds of parked motorbikes. It was about 1.30pm and we were looking for fish and chips for a late lunch and to celebrate the end of this walk and the completion of our circumnavigation of Norfolk. The fish and chip shop that we've patronised a couple of times in the winter had a queue coming out the door, but thankfully the number of fish and chip shops that were open had increased in line with the number of visitors, and we only had a couple of minutes to wait at 'Supafry', a traditional fish and chip shop slightly further away from the coast. We ate our fish and chips sitting on the green, then potted about and read for a while before catching the 14.40 express Coasthopper to Kings Lynn and then the 15.28 train home. 

If you're wanting to continue onto the Norfolk Coast Path from Hunstanton, click here for our next leg on that path.