Barnham Broom We visited another of Judith's Holiday Property Bond properties, this time in Norfolk, a few miles west of Norwich.
Balcony View Friday - We took the afternoon off work, but didn't manage to get away until 3pm, which meant we got stuck in loads of traffic, oh, pretty much everywhere. So it took us almost four and a half hours to drive 160 miles and we didn't arrive at Barnham Broom until after dark. Consequently there wasn't much of a view from the balcony of our apartment.
Pre-Dawn View Saturday - BBC Weather said sunrise was due at 05:28. As I woke up slightly before that, I thought I'd be as well to watch it as our balcony had such a clear view to the east. This was taken a few minutes before the sun was due to appear.
Pre-Dawn View This is basically the same photo as the last one, just with some tinkering. The mist was making it very atmospheric.
Sunrise Apparently it was mistier than it appeared as the sun was barely visible.
Sunrise Again, basically the same photograph as previously, with tinkering.
Apartments Anyway, once the sun was up properly and the mist had cleared, we got our first good view of where we were staying. HPB have half a dozen small blocks of apartments...
Hotel ...next to the Barnham Broom golf club and hotel, which is handy as that means there's somewhere close by to go for a bite to eat and a pint if you don't feel like cooking. There's also a big health club, with pool, gym, etc. that we got complimentary access do.
Golfists However, the main purpose of the resort is most definitely golfing. Given that the weather was splendid, the cark park was rammed by 9am with golfists getting an early start, as they seem to like to do.
Beers of Europe Meanwhile, Judith had discovered that the excellent internet based beer supply people, Beers of Europe, had an actual warehouse relatively close by (actually about 25 miles away, but Judith thinks that's close). So we thought we'd pop in there for a look and to get some supplied for the evening.They had so many beers, it reminded us of being in Belgium.
Sandringham Between the Beers of Europe warehouse and the coast was the Queen's Sandringham estate, so we thought it would be rude not to pop in and have a look. Fortunately the house was closed, so we stopped for a quick look at the visitor center.As the weather was so nice, there were loads of people out picnicing and walking their dogs, but there didn't seem to be much else to do so we pressed on to the coast.
Hunstanton We arrived on the coast at Hunstanton, where they have arcades and the sort of things I remember from visiting the coast thirty years ago.
Promenade Once again, the excellent weather had brought a lot of people out onto the promenade.
Sea Life Sanctuary However, we were here primarily to visit the Sea Life Sanctuary. We had a voucher for 30% off the entrance fee, but it still cost us £16 each to get in, which seemed a bit steep. Fortunately it was very entertaining.
Fish Some fish.
Bubble Judith with her head in an observation bubble, taken by me with my head in an adjacent observation bubble.
Clownfish One of those clownfish that children go absolutely mental about when they see one. "IT'S NEMO!!!!!!!!!!" Yes, it is. But do you need to shout it fifty times? Apparently you do.
Clownfish Bubble Still, I could hardly hear them from in the clownfish observation bubble.
Underwater Tunnel The obligatory underwater tunnel that all aquarium type things must have now.
Otters Some otters. They were very active and entertaining.
Sea Defences Anyway, having spent an entertaining hour or so in the Sea Life Sanctuary, we went for a bit of a walk on the beach.
Sea Defences You couldn't really see the horizon at all, which was a bit weird.
Wells-next-the-Sea After leaving Hunstanton, we headed along the coast road to Wells-next-the-Sea loking for some lunch. Unfortunately about a million other people had the same idea and were were very lucky to get what appeared to be the last parking space in town, right outside The Crown.We managed to arrive just in time to have a very nice lunch there (as we turned up at 2:15 and they stopped serving lunch at 2:30).
Cley and Salthouse Marshes After lunch we continued along the coast road. There was a very interesting looking visitor center at the Cley and Salthouse Marshes, but unfortunately we arrived a few minutes before it was due to close for the day. Doh! So we pressed on...
Muckleburgh Military Collection ...to the Muckleburgh Military Collection. Which was also closed. Apparently they were still closed for the winter and weren't due to open for another two days! Double doh!! So we pressed on...
Cromer Pier ...to Cromer. We'd arrived too late to be able to visit the highly rated Lifeboat Museum, but we had a nice walk down the pier.
Cromer There was a nice view of the town from the pier.
Cromer Pier And there was a nice view of the pier from the Lifeboat Museum (which was closed, as mentioned earlier).
Cromer Parish Church Big church for such a small town. Still, we had observed that there were plenty of reasons to come back here another time.Popped into a supermarket on the way back to Barnham Broom to get some food to accompany out Beers of Europe haul.
Snetterton Race Circuit Sunday - After a leisurely breakfast in the golf hotel's restaurant, we started a meandering drive home.Snetterton Race Circuit was very much on the way and they were hosting a track day (spectators welcome), so we popped in for a look.
Champion! Yay!
English Whisky Co. After leaving Snetterton, we also popped in to the English Whisky Co. It would have been nice to have had some lunch there, but it had only been a couple of hours since we'd had breakfast. Still, another place to add to the list for the next time we're down this way.And that was about it. Norfolk turned out to be much nicer and much more interesting than we had (for some reason) expected and we'll definitely need to visit again. Although, given how incredibly busy everywhere was on a sunny March weekend, I do worry about how rammed out everywhere will be in the summer. But there's only one way to find out...