King's Lynn to Setchey
Saturday 17th October 2009
About 6 miles
We decided to walk this first section of the Nar Valley Way more from a wish for completeness than with any great enthusiasm, and the walk didn't start well; the bus was late, it started to drizzle as we left King's Lynn - despite the weather forecast's insistence that it would be fine all day - and it was distinctly drizzly as we walked past the Norfolk Arena on the Saddlebow industrial estate. However the walk was far more interesting than I'd expected and the drizzle didn't come to anything. It was easy and fast walking.
We parked in the layby by the A10 at Bridge House in Setchey and caught the 37 bus to King's Lynn. From the bus station we walked through the shopping centre to the old Custom House. There's a statue of George Vancouver here, the 18th century explorer who gave his name to the city in British Columbia.
We walked along the quayside - it's quite trendy to start with, but then you turn inland across wasteland by a car-park, round some rough 'tidal land' then back to cross the River Nar at the point at which it joins the River Great Ouse (not that there's much to see of the Nar at this point - the volume of water in the river appears to increase as you go upstream). We parted company with the Fen Rivers Way and crossed common land with rough sculptures. We emerged on the road to South Lynn, close to the South Gate roundabout. We turned left, over the River Nar, then back down to the bank of the river, with factories to our left. We emerged onto the new link road, the A148. In principle there is an attractive path through the Nar Ouse Regeneration Project at this point; in practice we had to follow the road because the path and parkland were blocked off by barriers.
As it approaches the main A17, the A148 crosses the River Nar, and we spotted the path that we wanted to be on below us. We found a way down and although we were in a distinctly urban area the river itself was most attractive. We followed the eastern bank under the A17 and past a couple of disused railway bridges and some silos on the opposite bank. Then, at White House Farm, we crossed to the western bank and we stayed on this bank all the way to Setchey.
The river was still pretty but the noise from the Norfolk Arena (local home of speedway and stock car racing) was rather invasive and the view to our right hand side was distinctly industrial; in addition to the arena we passed the new Palm Paper mill and the King's Lynn Power Station.
There were swans on the drainage channel between Golden Ball Farm and Dairy Farm and the river took on different, still very attractive, nature as we passed through a wooded area. A house by the river bank forced us slightly away from the bank, then we met a man with five dogs (just about the only person we met all the time we were walking) as we passed underneath the railway.
From here the river was more as I'd expected, obviously straightened. Seeche Abbey and Abbey Farm were visible to our right-hand side and in the distance we could see the ruined church at Wiggenhall St Peter that we'd walked past on the Fen Rivers Way. The bank came alongside a minor road; the road meanders rather more than the river does in this section (presumably because the river has been straightened but the road hasn't) but we only had to follow the road around one meander, we were able to walk along the river bank most of the way back to the A10 at Setchey.
