Kings Lynn is a great hostel, in a wing of the Thorseby College building, built in 1510 by Thomas Thoresby on a quadrangular plan to house thirteen priests of the Trinity Guild. It was closed in 1548 at the dissolution of the guilds and the east wing became a house. We had a large oak beamed room to ourselves at the top. The warden was very helpful and tried to book us a place in the independent hostel at Burnham Deepdale after finding that the Wells YHA hotel was booked up by a school party. This too was full, but they had a campsite so it became our destination.
We left our bikes at the hostel and walked around this fascinating old port. Its most famous son is probably Captain George Vancouver, who gave his name to the Canadian city. He twice sailed with Captain Cook and later charted America from California to Alaska. After our customary coffee and cake we called into Sainsburys for lunch provisions and picked up NCN1 which took us along the old railway line (which was truncated here) and parkland through to Castle Rising, a lovely old village where we picnicked on a bench and looked at the castle.
Soon after leaving the village we crossed the busy A149 and entered Sandringham Country Park. There was no time to visit the castle and grounds so we pressed on. At Sedgeford I spotted the old station, now a private house which retains the beautifully kept signalbox. We continued north past cornfields and it was good to see poppies dotted about some of the patches. One field had an uncultivated strip along its edge, dense with bright red poppies and other wild flowers.
We dropped down into Old Hunstanton to see the dramatic sunlit cliffs, then returned to NCN1 along a minor road with very little traffic. We dropped down to Burnham Deepdale and its well appointed campsite, the best of the holiday. I cooked but an accident while serving resulted in half the meal ending up on the grass. We looked at the village and the church with its unusual round tower and I augmented my smaller than expected dinner with a chocolate bar.