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08:30.

Time to go home.

We’ve had an excellent week here in North Norfolk which has been made all the more enjoyable by the fact the weather’s been far better than was forecast. Oh, we’ve had a few thunderstorms and torrential rain, but the downpours have been during the night and the thunderstorms have merely added some dramatic skies as a backdrop. Now it’s time to pack the car and begin the trip back to West Yorkshire, although we’ll be taking the long way home as we’re in no rush. Besides, we have to be out of our accommodation by 10:00 so we have plenty of daylight to play with. Stay tuned to see what we get up to…

10:45.

We’re taking the scenic route along the coast from Cromer to Kings Lynn which is proving to be fun! Heavy rain has flooded the road in many places, especially at Cley next the sea.

Shortly afterwards we passed a new Landrover which had it and totalled someone’s car at a crossroads. Nasty…

11:45.

Having traversed the coast we made a pit-stop in Hunstanton at the site of the old railway station. There’s not a lot left.

We didn’t hang around. The weather’s cold and cloudy and the place is pretty deserted. We’re heading for Kings Lynn instead.

14:30.

Kings Lynn was far more interesting. The town has a fascinating collection of old buildings including the last remaining Hansatic league structure left in the UK.

Another interesting structure I had time to get shots of (thanks for stopping, Dawn) was the old rail/road swing bridge known as Cross Keys Bridge at Sutton Bridge.

The grade 2 listed Cross Keys Bridge was built in 1897 at a cost of £80,000. The nearest (Westbound) span was the one used by the Midland and Great Northern joint railway (M&GNR). Here’s a look down the old railway side.

20:45.

We’ve made it home finally after dodging some torrential rainstorms en-route. I’m beginning to hate the A17. Whilst traversing it on the way out we learned that the National Rail Awards was being postponed due to the rail strikes. This time on the way home we learned that the re-arranged awards was being postponed yet again (this time until October) due to the death of the Queen. Sadly, the revised date means that I’ll be unable to attend for the first time since 2003, but then so many things are up in the air right now.

The rest of the trip was uneventful – unless you count keeping out for people who really shouldn’t be let loose behind a steering wheel. The standards of driving we saw on the A1m, M1 and A616 (never mind in North Norfolk) was often awful. Thankfully we made it home in one piece. Mind you, it’s not just the standards of driving. I was looking at some of the stuff around the Queens funeral plans and came across this absolute gem of misinformation and sloppy journalism from @TimeOutTravel on Twitter. Not having checked any facts and having cribbed from 18 month old articles in newspapers they came up with this guff about the Royal Train being used to convey the Queen’s body from Scotland to London.

Thankfully, such a nightmare scenario has been avoided by flying the Queen’s body back from Scotland, much to the relief of ordinary passengers, rail staff and the British Transport Police. It’s bad enough when the general public cause chaos on the line as the ‘Flying Scotsman’ goes past. People throwing bunches of flowers onto 25,000 volt overhead wires on the East Coast Main Line or trespassing to do so doesn’t bear thinking about!

Over the next few days I’ll be catching up with editing all the pictures that I’ve taken over the past week. There’s not a huge amount as I’ve mostly been on holiday (honest!). Even so, there’s enough to keep myself and viewers occupied. I’ll post links to my Zenfolio website when they’re viewable.

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