Stiffkey, Norfolk

At least I had a really nice ride, right?

Anyway, you’re probably wondering where I was going in this sweet ride. I was off exploring rural beachside England, which, on the East coast of the country, anyway, is hard to find through the swamps and marshes that border the beach.

I stayed tucked away in Stiffkey, which I would never have heard about if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was going for a very special birthday celebration. (Not my own, we’ve some time for that!)

Stiffkey is more like a hamlet than even a village, but like any self-respecting cluster of more than two homes in England, it has a pub. This particular pub, the Red Lion, is also a B and B, which is where I stayed. Without phone service. For three. Whole. Days.

It was snowy.

It was windy.

It was glorious.

The weather didn’t at first seem like it was going to cooperate. With visions of Copenhagen swirling in my head, I decided to try to take the bad weather on the chin- literally, by catching snowflakes with my tongue. Luckily, the snow didn’t last for long, so out for a seaside ramble it was.

To get to the sea from Stiffkey, it’s a little…technical. Through fields and country lanes you go. But then….

Very, very wet, very, very slick marshland for about a mile to the actual ocean. Did I mention there are huge ravines gouged out by running water? Beautiful, really beautiful, but I didn’t really bring the correct footwear. Still, I think I managed to keep up okay. We even made it to the sandy part!

The next day, I declined to drive the narrow country roads to Wells on the Sea, the nearest “large” village to Stiffkey. So I was driven, like Miss Daisy, to the cutest little English town ever. As I remarked when I first saw it, it’s the kind of place my mother would go gaga over.

Just a short- and much more accessible- walk from the town center is the beach, miles and miles of sandy and muddy beach that leads to the Atlantic. It was a cold, windy and clear day, perfect for a long, long beach walk, and some amazing pictures.

I decided that when I grow up, I’m going to summer in one of these little beach huts. Good idea?

Right beside the water is a manmade forest, made to absorb the mushy goodness of the marsh. Not only is it really beautiful, it hides your face from the cold, grabby wind. So couldn’t very well give that a miss.

And it was a good thing we didn’t, either, because we came across a rope swing that did not disappoint!

This may or may not have been more scary than the driving in Central London to get to and from Norfolk!