CYHA News

The beginning of August saw a lucky thirteen of us head to Hunstanton for a weekend at the seaside. Arriving at about 9ish on Friday night, we had time enough to get our kit into the hostel and still join the rest of the gang for a nightcap at a local pub. Acquisition of the hostel door code meant there was no pressure, but none of us felt like staying out late as we needed our sleep to prepare us for an energetic Saturday ahead.

Of the thirteen, three went walking, taking in the red cliffs and the Gin Trap pub, but the prize for most teashops visited definitely went to the cyclists. We started off cycling through the villages of Ringstead and Sedgeford, reaching the windmill at Great Bircham in time for elevensies. Bircham windmill is both a tearoom and a bakery. There was an impressive array of cakes in the tearoom, but after our snack we visited the bakery and found buns and bread pudding – an irresistible temptation for a takeaway lunch time treat. Thus refuelled we set off again, pedalling off towards Sandringham for a late lunch in a shady glade. It was a hot day so we were glad of a chance to cool off, but not for long! Jim soon had us back on the road, heading towards Wolferton and the Royal railway station – now sans railway, but very picturesque. The owner invited us in to take a look at his collection of railway memorabilia and when we came out we bumped into Tony Robinson, filming his ‘Walks into History’ tv programme. I suspect we’ll end up on the cutting room floor, but I believe we were filmed cycling up the hill on our way out. Afternoon tea was at Sandringham. Unfortunately we’d failed to let the Queen know we were coming, so we had to queue up with the hoi-polloi for our icecreams.

We pedalled back to Hunstanton, but in the heat of the afternoon we were running low on water, so an icecream on the sea front proved hard to resist. All the same, we had clocked up 37 miles so a few treats were allowed – including fish and chips for tea as we watched the sun set over the sea.

Sunday was thankfully a little less hot, but saw a dividing of the group into four with two lots of walkers and two lots of cyclists. The largest number of us were the group of 5 cyclists who accompanied Jim to Holkham for a ride out to Nelson’s birthplace with a pilgrimage to an award winning pie café at Great Walsingham en route. In atonement, Doug visited both shrines – Catholic and Anglican – one for each of the pies sampled with his elevensies. Lunch was watching the cricket at Burnham Thorpe. Having survived the cricket balls hurtling in our direction, Ali succeeded in falling off her bike leaving the green. At first Dave laughed, but then he realised his pie was in her pannier! Luckily both pie and girlfriend were unharmed.

Back at Holkham, who should we bump into but Tony Robinson, again. Was he following us around?           

                                     Ali

Heatwave in Pleshey

Many thanks to George for leading an excellent walk in very trying conditions. On one of the hottest days of the year George took us on a splendid 9 mile hike taking some of the most scenic bits of Essex. In spite of starting and ending in Pleshey and crossing the Essex Way a couple of times, much of the route was new to us. Thankfully a lot of the post-pub route was shady as the temperatures soared in the afternoon. It was with some relief that we arrived back in Pleshey in time to partake of tea at the church. And cake. Well, it was all for charity!

Grafham bike ride

Dave and I arrived too late at the fishing lodge car park to witness the spectacle of Nick getting the tandem off the Landrover, but soon joined the gang for a surprisingly hilly cycle ride round the villages of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. We paused for an extremely nice lunch in a pub at Riseley before continuing back to the fishing lodge for tea and cakes. A small group of us finished off with a circumnavigation of the reservoir. We then got to watch Nick load up the tandem using his fancy German bike carrier with the hydraulic gimbled loading arm. It still looked pretty hard though – I don’t think we’ll be investing in a tandem any time soon!

St Peters Way Completists

Jim, Doug, Lily and Caroline were celebrating in the sunshine at the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall after their completion of the final section of this 41 mile route across rural Essex.