Wide skies, vast flat beaches, windmills out to sea and an old, interesting pier – definitely worth a visit in my book! We walked into Cromer from our caravan site (Ivy Farm) in Overstrand, about two miles along the beach. The tide was out, so the beach was massive; because it’s so flat, you can see for miles – the sea and sky seem huge, especially with the clouds reflecting in the wet sand. There are birds everywhere (Maggie’s nemesis) and my favourite are always the cormorants, lined up on the groyne posts like sentries to dry their wings.
Arriving in Cromer along the beach, the first thing you notice is the pier; it’s actually a very interesting one, with a lifeboat station at the end and a theatre in the middle. There are information boards about it’s history too – I think my favourite nugget was the story of how the pier was intentionally blown up during WW2 (to stop it being a landing area for enemy forces) but that two things went wrong; the first being that the explosion didn’t go to plan, with debris ending up in the high street (!) and the second that they then had to build a bridge across the gap in the pier so that the lifeboat crew could still access and launch their boats!
The town itself is nice too, centred around a big, beautiful church. We couldn’t go in because there was a funeral, but the outside is impressive enough. There are lots of knick-knack shops, a bakery and a butchers, as well as plenty of cafes and pubs; I imagine it would get very busy in the summer months…but on a slightly wet day in October it was pleasant to mooch around for an hour or so.
On the way back, the sun came out so we were treated to beautiful reflections and colours in the sand, as well as a noisy display from two dogfighting typhoons who were chasing each other over the bay; the thunder of their engines was deafening, but it was quite exciting to watch them swoop in and out of the clouds!
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