Norfolk Broads and Beaches

I thought I'd better start looking into my backlog of blog posts, and so here are some shots from our trip to Norfolk in March/April.  We stayed in a lovely cottage in Lessingham, near Stalham, which proved to be an ideal location for the Broads and beaches.

We spent a surprising amount of time on the beaches, especially at Sea Palling, where there were some amazing sand patterns, and miles of beach with few people on. Lovely!











All taken with Pentax K10D and FA50mm f/1.4 lens.

There's some wonderful architecture up there, and of course the windpumps are fairly iconic.  Later in the week we had some heavy fog, and a trip to Cromer Pier was a good opportunity to make the most of the atmosphere.











All taken with Pentax K10D and DA16-45mm lens, except St. Benet's Wind Pump, which used a Sigma 105mm lens.

The whole area is very rich in wildlife (we lost count of the Brimstone butterflies we saw), but some highlights for me are shown below.

We hired an electric boat one afternoon, and the Great Crested Grebes were very obliging, fishing very close to us. The electric boat meant that vibrations were kept to a minimum, in 'idle' there's no engine to tick over.









A walk along the shingle bank at Salthouse, near Cley, allowed me to get very near to a pair of Turnstones that were more than happy to do their thing within 6 feet of my lens. One of those times when you can't stop grinning...




But definitely one of the highlights was visiting the Grey Seals at Horsey. It was cold, foggy and windy as we walked out to the beach, but it was well worth it to see hundreds of seals up on the beach.  We spent about half an hour there, and the soft lighting really helped bring out all the detail in their fur.







All wildlife shots were with a Pentax K10D and the sublime DA*300mm f/4 lens.

This is the second year running we've been to Norfolk, and I think it will turn out to be a regular journey for us.