Day 15, Grimsby to Lowestoft

Probably the worst day for me. The weather was, once again, very nice and we avoided any showers but the taffic was a real pain.

We hit Cleethorpes first,  another nice seaside town, then down the coast to Mablethorpe. After this the land is quite flat, so you cant actually see the sea, as it's hidden behind a huge sea wall. The next time we saw the sea was at Skegness, where a diversion to the seal sanctuary for my kids, with Crocs, etc, proved fruitless, as I was unable to get another photo. From Skeggy, we moved inland to Boston, where we stopped for lunch at BK. The disappointment for me of riding through Lincolnshire, was not seeing the BBMF in the sky.

It was after this that the traffic got really bad, as we moved towards Hunstanton and Kings Lynn. Hunstanton is another nice and very popular resort but a bugger to get through. We weaved our way through Norfolk. In all honesty, it's hard to say where we have been, as we are following a blue line on TomTom all day but some names stick in the mind. We passed some manor houses and windmills but the most unexpected sight as I rounded a tight country lane had to be, a Spitfire on a pole.

A replica, it stands, until October, on the site of former RAF Langham, alongside the Langham dome. I've not yet read the blurb but I believe it was used in air gunner training. 

Time was getting on and we decided to skip some stops in Great Yarmouth and head straight to our next fuel stop. Unfortunately, that was closed for works but we found another not far from the hotel. Our last stop was at Ness Point, the most easterly on the UK mainland.I couldn't find anything to attest to that but I'm assured by a friend that there is a plinth And that the wind turbine is called  Gulliver.

 From there, it was just a short hop to the hotel. We arrived just in the nick of time to bag one of the 3 remaining parking spaces.

Our room, like so many it seems for Booking.com customers has a shit view and like most for us, is furthest away from reception. The view from the bar makes up for it, though the picture doesn't do it justice. I expect it looked a lot nicer earlier in the day.

Tomorrow we head for home, Chatham. That's not the end of the tour though, just a stopover in my own bed, as we continue around the south coast. I've now clocked up over 3000 miles since I left home on June 20th.

Day 14, Stockton-on-Tees to Grimsby

Grizzly threw the curtains back and the sun streamed in, onto me, still in bed! And it pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the day.

We just had 2 parts to our day today. There were no real stops planned apart from a fuel stop but after a couple of hours on the road we decided a stop was in order, at Flamborough Head. On the way down we'd stayed close to the coast. I never knew the north east was blessed with such lovely seaside towns and beaches, Redcar, Saltburn-by-the-sea, Bridlington, etc. We skirted Whitby and Scarborough too.Everywhere we rode, there were dozens of people, some even brave enough to brave the cold north sea.

Flamborough Head was the last waypoint before our fuel stop but was too nice to just ride to and straight out again. We parked the bikes, had a wee, then Grizzly fueled up with coffee and a buttered scone, whilst I had a waffle cone with raspberry razzle ice cream. The place, like everywhere we've been or ridden through, was thick with people, hardly surprising given the glorious weather. We have been very lucky with the weather, though as I type, it is raining hard and thundering. Looking at the forecast for tomorrow, we could well miss the showers again. Fingers crossed.

      The New Flamborough Lighthouse, 1806

                   The old lighthouse, 1672

Fuel stop was Bridlington Tesco. From there we continued south through more lovely seaside villages, Hornsea and Withensea, the latter reminding Grizzly of a place in Cork. I swear he got all teary eyed!  We ran down to The Spurn, basically a pointy outcrop of land at the Humber estuary. There wasn't really anything to see there, so we made a plan to stop at the next petrol station for coffee. On the way we went through a village called Easington, where there was a huge gathering of twitchers (bird watchers), so there must have been a rare bird sighting of some description. There were some very big cameras on show. A quick Google is talking about a black-browed albatross!

Following our coffee stop we crossed the Humber Bridge. It's free to bikes and we even had a lane of our own, sailing by all the cars queuing to pay. Wow! I had no idea that the Humber was so wide. It's a bloody big river and a bloody big bridge.

After a long hot day in the saddle, we arrived in Grimsby, our stop for the night. The view from our room is a bit mixed St James' Church and Wilco's roof!

There's a nice memorial on the green,  to Grimsby fishermen.

Tomorrow, as we start week 3, we are heading for Lowestoft. Hopefully the weather will hold.