We finished the coast in Yorkshire with a sunset at Spurn Point on the north bank of the Humber and began this “leg” on the south bank right under the Humber bridge (with another sunset) on a Park4Night. Fiona set off the following morning heading over the bridge to Cleethorpes – well someone had to!

Mike took over on a busy day with lots of holidaymakers and day trippers – he really loves crowds like that!

Then began the seemingly endless trip down the Lincolnshire coast – as cyclists we have a love/hate relationship with hills, but this stretch of coast was interminably flat. It was the sort of flat which gets to you and all you can think about is grinding out the miles. A bridge over a railway line becomes the Lincolnshire equivalent of Alpe d’Huez!

The other thing we noticed about this part of the coast and around the Wash was the silence – all the hedgerows seemed to have been stripped out to make the fields easier to cultivate but this had the problem of leaving the birds homeless and creating the eerie silence – no birdsong.

We stayed that night by the river Nene on another Park4Night. Now, the river Nene is a tidal river and the tide was out when we arrived but a discussion with a local lead to us moving our van a little onto some higher ground. The morning after proved this to be a good idea as we sat in the van drinking tea the next morning watching the tide rush in – to near where we had been parked!

Fiona set off the next day into the silence that is the Wash – flat, flat and flatter – handing over gladly to Mike just before Kings Lynn. I think Mike had the better deal as Kings Lynn was beautiful, if a little confusing to get out of. and then he came to this strange phenonama – a hill through the Sandringham estate. Forthunately he remembered what to do – push harder arriving at Snettisham for an epic Park4Night on the beach.

Next it was around the “hump” of Norfolk via Cromer, Wells next the Sea (it isn’t!). This was all new to Mike who had never been to anywhere on this coast. Great Yarmouth was very busy, so we headed to Lowestoft for the most easterly point of Britain.Suffolk was next with the fashionable towns like Southwold and Adleborough and the various small ferries across the many estuaries – some were working, some were not as Mike found out after cycling down a narrow track and across a field – the tide dictates round there!

Anyway onwards through the port of Felixtowe with Fiona on another ferry. Mike was trying to meet an old print colleague at Frinton but he was away – but Frinton was very pretty with masses of colourful bathing huts. So we were near the end as we approached Moldon where the salt comes from.