We Went to See the Sea

What lay ahead of us was a four day weekend with some of the ickiest weather yet this winter/spring, so what else do you do when it's going to be really cold out??? Go to the North Sea of course!!! I spent the entire week looking up "attractions" for western Norfolk county and I found some interesting things that I thought we could check out in a day's time. We loaded up Addie Friday morning and headed out. We first headed towards King's Lynn to a 12th century castle called Castle Rising. It was home of Queen Isabella who arranged the gruesome murder of her husband King Edward II...interesting huh? It was pretty cold and windy and I couldn't but think about it being the same way back in the 12th century and there were actually people living in this cold fortress we were walking around.

Next we headed north to Hunstanton to see the sea. We walked along the prom (promonade) and felt like we were getting sandblasted from the beach...we had to put the rain cover on Addie's stroller to keep her protected from the wind. There were lots of fair rides that were actually running, but we decided to pass this time around. The water on the sea was rough and dirty looking, but it could have been because water was fairly shallow and the tide was low. We saw wind and kite surfers flying up and down the beach. These people had to be mad because it was freezing (literally it was 40 F with a wind chill of 25 F), but they must enjoy having the wind. We ate at a quaint little place called Cassie's and of course had the fish and chips special as we watched the crazy surfers.

We headed off to our next destination - Holkham Hall near Wells-Next-the-Sea (and no it's not Wells-Next-to-the-Sea). The trip from Hunstanton to Wells was only to be 15 miles but the SatNav said it would take 50 minutes...that usually isn't a good sign. We drove through lots of little villages on some pretty narrow roads that reminded us a lot of driving in Ireland. For the folks in the States, try picturing the one lane of traffic you drive on and now split it in half and put 6 inch banks of dirt on each side and some hedges, plus put some nasty curves in it as well with oncoming traffic...that's what we drove on. The hall wasn't open yet so we drove around the grounds and through the deer park which was loaded with hundreds of deer grazing about. It started to down pour on, so we couldn't get out to look around and it put a cabash on the rest of the day as far as getting out and about. We drove through Wells and decided not to check out Holkham beach this time because of the weather, but it will be a place we go in the future when it's warmer and drier.

We made one last stop at Bircham Windmill which was supposed to be our break for Addie to run in their play area and pet the farm animals they have on site, but the wind and rain kept us to looking around the bakery, tea room and gift shop. We did get to see a mini pony and funny looking goat, and we took a quick picture out front.

There are lots of little places that claim some fame all around us where ever in the world we are, and I have never taken advantage of them in all the places I've lived before, so I decided we are going to exploit as many of them as we can while we are here in England. Anything is better than sitting around the house all weekend...even if you get rained on and blown away.