Week 11: Drifting around the Norfolk Broads
- Nov 14, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 15, 2021
Our stops this week:
1 night at Fynn Valley Golf Club (near Ipswich)
1 night at The Crown Inn (in Snape)
3 nights at The Hollies Campsite (near Lowestoft)
2 nights at The Norfolk Broads Club site (near Ludham)
After one more night spent dodging stray shots at the golf course we set off for the coast. We spent the day parked up by the beach just outside of Aldeburgh... like lots of places we've visited this was another really pretty little town full of quirky character, with a really nice high street with old buildings filled with independent shops, cafes and pubs.
From Aldeburgh we walked along the beach to Thorpeness, which despite being in the shadow of Sizewell nuclear power station... beats Aldeburgh hands-down for quirkiness. According to the locals, the village originally a fishing village but later developed into a holiday resort, was inspired by J.M Barrie (the author of Peter Pan) who was a close friend of the Ogilvie family who owned and built it. The boating lake has several landmarks named from the Peter Pan stories and more than a few strange properties...
The tall house is officially called "The House in the Clouds" but the locals know it as Tinkerbell's house... well they do smoke fish here, what do you expect!
The sculpture on the beach is called The Scallop, you're supposed to see different things (a boat??) from different angles... but we could just see a giant shell and Bear even crawled underneath to check out the view from there!
Our next overnight stop was our first 'Pub Stop'... it seems more and more pubs are now offering free overnight parking for motorhomes with an understanding that you support the pub, which seems like a great idea to me!
We arrived at about 5pm when the pub was supposed to open but all the doors were locked and despite a few lights being on, no one seemed to be around... we went back again just after 6pm and found an unlocked door and a very welcoming landlord inside (possibly because we were the only customers all night).
We had a decent and very reasonably priced burger and chips (£6 each) and I tried a pint of local beer, which wasn't great (a bit too sweet for me) but I didn't want to offend the locals (that weren't there) so drank it with a smile!
The landlord proudly told us that he and his family recently featured in a couple of ITV and Channel 5 documentaries about Britains biggest families... he then introduced us to a handful of his nine kids (one of them, I think the oldest, cooked our dinner) and showed us pictures of the others, as well as the family pets; a giant tortoise and two giant rabbits... clearly a family that don't do half measures!
Yvette and Layden (the landlord) had a long chat about special education needs and strengths and pitfalls of the education system, it turns out he is lobbying his local authority to make changes to how kids are assessed and offered special needs education.
Before leaving the village of Snape we visited Snape Maltings (originally where they malted barley for brewing beer) but now it has an interesting array of shops, restaurants, art galleries and a concert hall which hosts a month long music festival every summer.
From Snape our next overnight was a big campsite just outside of Lowestoft called the Hollies, it has space for 300-400 pitches but at this time of year there was barely a dozen occupied pitches. From the campsite we could walk directly on to the beach but the weather wasn't great so we only did this once. We decided to have a "van day" here which involved a thorough clean of the van, Bear, us and some laundry... Yvette even cut my hair whilst I sat outside the van, which attracted a few strange looks from the neighbours!
The martian looking landscape of the beach at The Hollies Campsite... it looked much better at night.
On the way to The Hollies we stopped at Southwold for a walk along the beach and an icecream... perfect for a drizzly day in November.
On Friday, we took a drive out to Beccles to have a nose around one of the Norfolk Broads 'gateway'towns... really nice market town right on the river Waveney. After trying (and failing) to wear Bear out with a riverside walk we found an outside table at Prezzo (Yvette only let us go because we had a 2 for 1 voucher!). It was great to have a pizza as we don't have an oven in the van (well not one that you can fit a pizza in).
To round the week off we moved further north up to Great Yarmouth, where we had pre-booked a drifting experience (a Christmas present from Yvette's brother, Tyrone)...
Sorry the video doesn't do the experience justice! Ps. Yvette is in the car in front...
I need to remember to film in landscape next time!
We've had a few walks in the Broads but I'll leave this for Yvette to cover next week.
It's been another good week but the shorter and wetter days make life in the van a little more tricky but we're still enjoying the freedom and slower pace.
Just to finish I wanted to mention the MoHo wave... I don't think we've covered this before. It seems to be an unwritten rule that when you drive a motorhome you have to wave at other motorhome drivers going in opposite direction. Some people take this very seriously and wave with real enthusiasm, for others it's definitely a more reluctant wave, or even just a nod (Yvette is definitely in this 2nd group).
Apparently Landrover Defender drivers do the same but they just lift one finger off the steering wheel (I don't think this is rude) it's just to reflect their cool and laid back nature.
There are some extra rules... MoHo's shouldn't wave to Campervans (think VW Vans with surfboards on the roof) and MoHo's definitely shouldn't wave to Caravaners! That said I have waved to a few supermarket delivery vans by mistake, most of them just look confused but occasionally they've waved back.
I've also noticed a regional variation of the MoHo wave... in Suffolk and Norfolk it tends to be a relaxed big, slow wave... in Devon and Cornwall it's a much more abrupt quicker wave... I don't think this is anything to do with the South-west being less friendly, they are just trying to keep both hands on the steering wheel whilst focusing on the gap between us and the Cornish hedge (a stone wall with a thin covering of hedgerow) trying to workout if they can fit through the gap!
Hi guys, do you know how far Bear has walked on your travels? I’m guessing his tracker may record this rather than you trying to calculate!