A Norfolk Bike Ride

We've recently returned from our summer holidays for which we travelled nearly 400 miles to spend a week in North Norfolk, a lovely part of the world. With us we brought one bike and planned to take turns to go out for an evening ride. For various reasons (kite flying and eating out!) I ended up making just the one bike ride, I'd taken a map of the "Quiet Lanes" and in the late sunshine of last Sunday evening I set off to explore...

Pretty red roofed cottages overlook the sea.

Such an abundance of wild flowers, particularly poppies for which this area is noted (though I'm sure they must have been more plentiful the past than they are now). We don't have wild poppies like these at home so I did take rather a lot of photos of them (as you'll see later!).
 

Daisies.

Poppy.

More poppies in the foreground. Beyond lies a golden field and in the distance, a church tower.

Silhouettes.

A Norfolk lane.

The church tower (Southrepps) silhouetted against the evening sky.

Looking in the other direction the sun shines upon a field of green crops (I can't remember what in particular here, there were quite a few cabbage fields around which were rather aromatic!)

The church tower scene again showing the effect on the lighting obtained by focusing on a different part of the view. Now you can see the golden field in the foreground.

I did find the lanes a little confusing and once or twice ended up not quite where I expected to.

Another field of golden corn. This isn't a common sight at home either as we stay in a dairy area so it's mostly grass, so very green all year round. (From the Cambridge online dictionary... corn in the UK refers to (the seeds of) plants, such as wheat, maize, oats and barley that can be used to produce flour, whereas corn in the US refers to the seeds of the maize plant, or the plant itself)

More poppies and corn, glowing in the low sun.

And again, from a lower angle,

You can see the poppies here lining the road. I never came across a field of them, which would have been nice!

Looking to the left, the red of the poppies stand out against the corn even though the light by this time is getting a little low.

Eventually I find myself at Northrepps, just a mile or so from our holiday cottage. Many of the villages round here have these lovely signs. The Northrepps one is of current interest as amongst the local history depicted on the sign is the crest of the Gurney family, founders of what became Barclays Bank.

Almost "home" now, just in time to catch the sun setting over the sea at Overstrand where we are staying.

More to follow...