Holy Trinity Church, Loddon

Dover - Shetland Day 8
Beccles - Fakenham

Distance cycled: today 93km, total 638.5km
Ascent: today 345m, total 3552m

Highlight: nice to start the day with a short train ride from Lowestoft to Beccles (which I had ridden through en route from Ipswich to Lowestoft, so decided to not retrace my route by bike). Pleased to feel OK being back on the bike after my rest day and particularly enjoyed a long fast stint along the Marriott Way, which is a traffic free route on an old railway line to the west of Norwich.

Lowlight: meeting a large (& inevitably white) van coming down a single width, but two way, high-sided lane with no passing places. Squeezing into the edge to allow it to scrape past resulted in multiple nettle stings on legs and hands. Thanks mate! Interesting to know what happens if two road vehicles meet.

What else? Anyone who has explored the extensive National Cycle routes network will know that much of the traffic free sections are on the beds of former railway lines (such as most of Aberdeenshire's Deeside Way). Remarkably many of the former stations en route are restored and well preserved by enthusiastic volunteers. Reepham & Whitwell station, where I stopped at for a cup of tea not only had relaid lines and locomotives, a large cafe in the former ticket office but also a large function room and bar in one of the engine sheds. Bizarrely dozens of leather clad motor bikers had arrived by the time I left, with an average age of more than 60.

Photo: Loddon has a typical (large) Norfolk church, finished in the early 1500s. The building has changed little since, although the war memorial in the foreground is obviously far more recent.