BRITAIN’S BEST RIDE-OUTS
and thousands of tonnes of Norwegian rock groynes piled in sections along the beach, creating havens for sea life and turning the beach into a series of scalloped bays.
From Sea Palling we nip to Happisburgh, past the barber’s shop lighthouse, for a quick peek at the disappearing shoreline as the cliff crumbles back, year after year, into the waves. It’s one of the least permanent coastlines in the world and a few years ago a whole street of houses was being eaten, one by one. They’re gone now, washed into the sea, and the rest of the village will go the same way unless the coastline is protected.
Onwards, past one of the UK’S major gas terminals at Bacton with its forest of policed pipes and high security fencing – you can bet that’s protected from the waves – then we roll into Mundesley with its chunky concrete WWII gun emplacements perched on the clifftop proving the perfect spot for an impromptu sit-down in the sun looking out across the wide sands and flat sea down below. I could stay here all day, but we have to move on – away again, flashing past typical flint-clad cottages and into the bustle of Cromer. The town is always rammed with tourists and traffic, popular beyond its means to cope, but we take a quick walk down by the pier to watch kids hauling nets stuffed with crabs from the water. Maybe they’re the same crabs every time.
As the coast bevels round the northern edge of East Anglia, past Sheringham and Weybourne, on through Salthouse and Cley-next-the-sea, the landscape changes character – marshier, fewer trees, salt flats behind the sand dunes.
Get a clear run on an evening and the road is a joy. The Tiger Sport feels alive as it darts between the hedges. We roll into Wells-nextthe-sea, a small fishing harbour more famous for its broad sweep of sands stretching into the fading blue distance.
With the Tiger Sport 660 parked up and looking immaculate among stacked fishing nets, we take out a mortgage and grab a box of fish and chips. Of a weekend, plenty of other bikers stop here for fish and chips, too. It isn’t cheap, but it is good. Soon it’s time to get underway again and we’re drawn to the quiet beauty and twists of the salt flats. It’s a world away glitzy Great Yarmouth.
We bop away into the low sun dropping across the Wash, the light golden upping the contrast like an old Hollywood movie. The final few miles into Hunstanton reel by and we get to the prom, scattered with bikes, in time to grab a last coffee of the ride from Kay’s Donuts and have a quick go in the amusement arcade. Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside.