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Archives for May, 2024

Sizewell

May 31st, 2024

A pox on the weather forecasters! I booked the hotel for this trip a few days in advance when the forecast was still “sunny with clouds” but by the night before it had deteriorated to “heavy rain”, which unfortunately proved accurate.

So I spent the first half of the trip getting increasingly wet. But it eased off eventually and finally stopped once I arrived Sizewell, best known for its two nuclear power stations.

Sizewell B

The big white golf ball is Sizewell B, which is still operating. Lurking behind it is the grey shell of Sizewell A which was decommissioned in 2006 but won’t be demolished until 2098 at the earliest.

Southwold

May 22nd, 2024

Time to continue my trek around East Anglia after a long pause since my epic mission to Great Yarmouth last year. This time I’m off to Southwold via Lowestoft.

Great Yarmouth in the fog early on a Saturday morning is not the most inspiring place to be. The town has clearly seen better days. I’d spent the night in a Wetherspoons which sounds grim but was surprisingly nice.

Ness Point

After a frustrating section trudging through sand dunes I eventually came to Lowestoft, and this nondescript disk which is Ness Point the most Easterly place in the United Kingdom.

UKD Orca after passing through the bridge

Lowestoft harbour has a rather exciting bridge which splits in the middle and raises up to allow ships through. In this case it was UKD Orca, “a modern and highly versatile trailing suction hopper dredger”, so there you go.

Southwold pier

After a brief detour through the lovely interior of Suffolk I arrived in Southwold, snapped a picture of the pier, and then ran off to catch the last bus back to Lowestoft followed by another one and a half hour bus to Norwich. Hooray for the £2 fare cap.

Tring to High Wycombe

May 19th, 2024

Last month I had to go empty a bucket (don’t ask) and to not make the whole day a total write-off I went for a bit of a walk too, from Tring to High Wycombe. Route-wise it was more-or-less a direct repeat of my walk to Aylesbury in 2015, although I only realised that after the fact.

At Wendover I passed through the massive HS2 construction site. This was most definitely not here the last time I passed through.

HS2 construction site