Day 3: Weybourne to Blakeney

I’m excited about going to Blakeney. Memories of going out on boat trips around the Blakeney Nature Reserve when I was a little boy have endured strongly, and I have long wanted to revisit the place. In the morning I perform again my careful and fastidious packing routine, but this time I opt for belt free long cord trousers so the guy rope can stay attached to the tent. My pack includes a needle, strong thread, a thimble and small scissors as a repair kit should one of the rather old and suspect straps break or tear. On close inspection though there doesn’t seem to be anything needing a stitch. With nobody else with me, my pack becomes something of a companion. I’m relying on it to get the things that I need to the places I want to go. There is a mutual dependence between myself and it:

Oh Pack I will look after thee
Wilt thou look after me?


Hungry and looking for a full breakfast I plan to go back into the village where I’d seen them on offer yesterday, but old Wharton advises me that “there’s a caffy in Keeling - it’s on your way”, so I avoid tracing my steps backwards through Weybourne and take this more progressive option. Unfortunately there is nothing much resembling a breakfast in the tea room cum bookshop and antique emporium in the next village of Keeling. I settle for an unsatisfactory microwaved sausage roll and ropey coffee.

Going back towards the path, I’m cheered by the warm bright sunshine, still prevailing despite the rain clouds crowding in. I take pictures of butterflies along the hedged path and decide to take a dip in the sea when I get to the next beach. The path leads out to the road and the road leads to Salthouse (named because it was a store house for salt, would you believe), then a road to the right leads to a high shelf of shingle beach. I scramble over and find a decent gap between the sea anglers on the shore (evidence of the deep water to be had here) where I wriggle into my swimming shorts and charge in. Fully immersed, I bob about, lie on my back and wriggle my tender toes about in the cold brine. A grey cloud goes in front of the sun as I lie looking up, and I follow its slow progress; when it finally moves past and the sun comes out again, I swim to the shore and scramble out to let the sun dry me off while I lunch on peanuts and raisins.


There is an absence of coastal path signs here, but I know that the path is supposed to follow the coastline until Cley (pronounced Clie) where the path works its way inland to the town. You need to avoid going beyond the turn off for Cley; if you continue straight past you will start along the 9 mile long Blakeney Spit, that continues to the fenced off dead end at Blakeney Point inhabited only by seal and tern colonies (a boat trip is planned for Sunday). Heading for the Cley turning, I opt to walk along the landward side of the path, where saltmarshes are beginning to stretch out on my left. At first the terrain alternates between easily tramped turf and toilsome pebbles, but as it goes on it gets less turfy and more pebbly, as the encroaching stones bury the last semblance of path, along perhaps with the original signposts.

Avocet

Salthouse to Cley

Walking through one of the many shallow pebbly pools I disturb a sole avocet, which I manage to photograph as it rises and flies off. Further on to the left there’s a lake shaped like a fat horseshoe, with unidentifiable geese on the ridge of land in the middle. Further on still a bigger, shallow looking expanse of water stretches out. The walk is generally deserted; just me and the birds for most of the time. A bird hide emerges overlooking another watery stretch. It’s a shame I don’t have binoculars, to be honest. I just couldn’t carry mine (which are old and heavy) and my camera. My eyesight is keen but so much is so far away.


Eventually I come to the Cley beach car park and there are clear signs for the Blakeney National Nature Reserve (ahead) and the North Norfolk Coastal Path going left (Cley-next-the-Sea 1m). From here it’s an easy flat walk along the path across the wetlands towards Cley’s windmill ahead. On the right of the path is a channel of water that separates the marshes on the Blakeney harbour side from the Spit. At just before 3 pm I treat myself to my first taste of draught Yetman’s Beer at the George in Cley. After today’s walk this superb ale is really something.


Blakeney is now only a mile away but the path wants to take me straight back out towards the sea alongside the channel and path that took me into Cley. Before that, still on the east side of the channel, I walk a concrete walled  path alongside which boats are moored (or abandoned) on a channel that is only a metre or two wide and surrounded by reeds. It’s through the town a bit and then I’m directed onto the long straight path along another raised sea defence towards the sea that lies obscured behind the horizon. After about a mile, near the shingle beach that can’t be seen, the widening channel turns left to follow the coast and the path goes with it. With time aplenty I stop twice for lengthy periods to take in the scene. On the muddy banks two shelduck with about 10 ducklings waddle along, following each other in and out of the water, and again in and out of the water, to no apparent purpose. An elegant white wading bird (a little egret) shows greater intent, steadily wading out along the shallow water, jabbing its bill into the mud with regular nods of its head. It then briefly takes to flight to peruse similar shallows a little further in front.

Blakeney

Gradually the road bends round to the left and the old town of Blakeney emerges; church tower rising from the trees above the town, yacht masts visible in the foreground. A fine John Deere tractor approaches me along the road that runs by the path to my left. A heron stands serenely in a pool in the sunshine; beyond the pool is a reed stack covered in a tarpaulin. As I get nearer the boats I hear the sound of rigging clapping against masts in the wind. The sound gets louder as I approach, as if applauding me for making it to the end of todays walk. I know, as if.


Now to find my campsite. I know it is a field opposite the Manor Hotel, and there is the Manor to my left at the end of the path. Opposite the Manor I find a gate and field that checks with the picture I’d seen on the internet when hunting North Norfolk campsites.


Booking this was an odd one. On Google it was the only campsite in or around Blakeney that I could find. The one online review called it “a charming new spot for nature lovers”. A single meadow with a cold water tap and public loos just down the road. Basic. The asking price was £20 per tent per night - too steep - but I’d rung the proprietor, a Mr S. and he was persuaded to give me the 2nd night I wanted for free, so at £10 a night this seemed fair to tolerable. I wired Mr S the money he wanted into his company bank account, and he confirmed by email with a booking number.


My booking number is 401A, and as I walk round this empty field, every square foot of which is covered with small but very prickly thistles, I wonder by what logic or random process that precise booking number was arrived at? Am I his 401st booking? This seems unlikely considering the field is empty on the weekend one week before the commencement of the school holidays. And what might the “A” represent? Despite the fine weather, closeness to Blakeney Quay and “proximity to nature” I can’t suppress a cheesed off feeling that somehow I’ve been taken, especially as I commence cutting a thistle free patch beside my tent with my little scissors, in the hope of preventing my inflatable mat from being punctured when I lay it there.


I wander to Blakeney Harbour and it’s a pretty picture; the inlet curves in along the quay, kids and mums and dad are occupied with crab fishing, the odd boat chugs in, signs advertise boat trips to see the seals, pretty flint buildings stand on the harbour front. I spot a couple of hikers, laden similarly to me an hour ago with tent equipment, stepping off the path, and I go over to chat to the elder while the other (his son) goes into a shop. I’m curious to know where they are camping. Getting slightly unforthcoming and grumpy responses, I become self conscious at being a stranger asking questions, so I make an excuse and go.


Feeling a little lonely, I ring up my daughter for a chat. Before leaving I had told her about the legend of Black Shuck, the mythic hound appropriated by Conan Doyle from the East Anglian coastline to Dartmoor in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Over the phone we laugh and howl in mimicry of the "Straunge and Terrible Wunder", also known as the Doom Dog, it’s eyes like saucers and as big as a horse, which terrifies and brings a curse upon those who encounter him. I joke that if I’m going to meet this fatal beast on my journey this will be the place.


At the end of my call, with the light becoming gloomy, I realise that no amount of jesting and bravado was going to shake off the feeling I had somehow formed that there was something remote and spooky about Blakeney, and I didn’t much fancy sleeping in the empty field owned by the mysterious Mr Wm S, here on the edge of the wild saltmarshes. I sink a couple of joyless pints at the Kings Head, where I come across the two grumpy hikers again (who avoid talking to me) and then return to my tent before it’s completely dark. There I lie, with eyes shut, jumping a little at innocuous noises outside the tent. Eventually I am put out of my misery; at half past ten a car illuminates the dark field with its headlights, and a family of four get out, girls ooching and ouching on the thistles as they leave their car in bare feet. I get out of my tent, have a beer and a smoke, chill out and go to sleep.