Little Walsingham has a big history. Back in the 12th century a widow in the village convinced everybody that she had been visited by the Virgin Mary (see the story here). From this point on people made pilgrimages to the village meaning that there are now several churches, an abbey (now ruined) and a shrine to OLW (Our Lady of Walsingham) in the village.
Parking charges apply 24/7 so we paid for an hour and had a very pleasant wander around the village, taking in the parish church and the back road behind it back into the village, There are a couple of lovely looking pubs, the abbey gardens to visit (at £5 each), tea-rooms and a shrine shop.
I even managed to make my way up some of those floating steps – a bit of a challenge for me 🙂
We then moved on to Holkham Beach with the aim of lazing the afternoon away by the sea. We didn’t know, until I posted a photo on Instagram, that there is a naturist area on the beach! It wasn’t until we’d paid to park (£5 for 4 hours with no option for the 3 that we wanted), that we found out the beach has no facilities – not even temporary toilets in the car park.
It was a ¾ mile walk down to the beach, through the pine forest and across the sands and the dunes to this amazing stretch of golden sands, with ponies galloping through the water channels that were wending their way down to the sea. With occasional patches of razor clam and oyster shells it was best to keep your footwear on!
We eventually settled on a spot high on a dune – actually Calv settled on it and I spent most of my time trying not to slide down it!! Instead I went into the water, not all the way in but I did get my bikini top wet… 😊
On the way back to the van we followed the A149 along the coast looking for a tearooms to grab a slice of cake in. We eventually found one in Burnham Deepdale – unfortunately being 4pm and with lots of people milling around in the sunshine it was, of course, closing…
So it was straight back to the van to sit in the sun for the last part of the day. The next day we were heading back to West Norfolk to see parts that we hadn’t yet seen 😊
Since Monday we’ve been staying in Hunstanton. Unfortunately our chosen site isn’t really the best for us, but it does have a swimming pool and we’ve got it for £16 per night… We’re at the southern end of Hunstanton and having been out for a bike ride last night (it’s now Thursday as I write this) we’ve discovered it gets nicer and nicer as you travel north. until eventually you find Old Hunstanton and the most wonderful beach – with facilities, beach huts nestled amongst the dunes, a hotel and pub, a café and miles of golden sand 😊
Our 1st impressions had been formed by a walk on the 1st evening in our immediate vicinity, showing rundown buildings, cheap fairground rides and amusements on the front, a not-particularly welcoming looking beach and a much nicer looking touring and static site next door!!
Calv had started feeling ill that same evening and on Tuesday he was really not well so, apart from a trip to Tesco (which he insisted on coming on, and I insisted on walking to) we did nothing. I did go for a swim in the morning to the session described as ‘Serious Swim’. A small pool and a number of people having a serious chat rather than a serious swim meant that it was difficult to swim properly so unfortunately I haven’t tried again ☹
The last couple of days have been really lovely though and in my next post I will tell you about Castle Rising and Sandringham as well as our couple of hours in Kings Lynn.
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