"Chilly, isn't it?" says the smiley lady in the warmth of the Burnham Market
tearoom as she hands over the piping hot lattes. I agree - and nearly add:
"Especially if you are staying in a teepee."
Spring may have sprung but the countryside is at its muddiest, and I have
persuaded my husband and teenage daughters (aged 17 and 15) to spend the weekend
in a teepee in north Norfolk, leaving behind shops, homework, ponies and
boyfriends for a bit of back-to-nature stuff. Ever since I spotted the word "teepee"
on Deepdale Farm's website, I have longed to curl up in one.
My husband has not been hard to persuade: he is game for anything. The girls
are reluctant. "Mum, a tent in April is a sure sign of a mid-life crisis," says
Miranda. Their curiosity wins them over. "I'm only sleeping in it if it's round
and has a hole in the top," announces Ros. The dog is a push-over: lurchers love
slumbering next to their owners and relish open spaces.
The teepee is circular and it does have a hole at the top. When we arrive at
Deepdale Farm, just outside Brancaster Staithe, we find our teepee in a walled
paddock looking like a pointy meringue. Crunching across the gravel drive to
greet us is Jason Borthwick who, with his father Alister, has developed the
family farm to encompass a backpackers' hostel, campsite and information centre.
Jason opens the canvas door of the teepee and shows us inside. Four airbeds
are ranged round a pot-bellied stove, fuelled by briquettes. If we want to light
the fire, we must open the top of the teepee by moving two bamboo poles. It's
exciting to be organising our bedding and getting out our spotted tea-pot. "You,
busy squaw - me, mighty brave," says my husband.
Later that night, I tell myself sternly that there are compensations to lying
sleepless in a teepee. It's eerily quiet and you can see the sky through the
criss-crossing of the poles. From the outside comes the sound of owls hooting;
from the inside come the snores of my husband, replete with fish and chips
washed down by two pints of Old Les ale at the Jolly Sailors pub down the road.
Morning dawns, grey and misty. Jason has drawn up a programme based on
cycling and walking round the area, stopping off for sustaining meals. We've
decided to do everything on the list. Barely have we drunk our morning tea than
our hired mountain bikes arrive and we set off, avoiding the fast coast road and
taking the small lanes that meander inland.
Our route takes us first to Burnham Market where, true to its reputation as
"Chelsea-on-Sea", the village is bustling with well-dressed couples briskly
purchasing local delicacies. There's not a scrap of litter and the bank is
painted a tasteful shade of pink.
By riding a bicycle you discover that Norfolk isn't flat after all. Ros and I
push our bikes up the long hill leading to the great wall that surrounds the
3,000 acres of Holkham Park. Turning into the estate, we are rewarded by a dead
straight, mile-long drive bordered by evergreen oaks leading to the obelisk that
stands like an exclamation mark at the highest point of the park.
You can't go to Holkham without walking on the beach. My husband can't go to
the sea without going into it, and his chilly dip earns him a cheer from a group
of walkers as their dogs run circles on the sand. We deserve several slices of
cake at the Marsh Larder in Holkham's 16th-century Ancient House, where
everything is made on the premises.
Cycling in the dusk past Holkham Hall, we startle a herd of deer who
disappear into the darkness, moving in perfect synchrony. Signs in the hedgerows
guide us to Branthill Farm.
Here Teddy Maufe, a tenant of the Holkham Estate, farms 1,000 acres. Each
year his best barley goes for malting, and the farm shop sells real ale from
Norfolk breweries. North Norfolk Beauty, Reed Cutter, Fine Soft Day: the names
given to these artisan beers are positively poetic. The ale itself ranges in
colour from palest amber to peaty brown, and the taste from light and
thirst-quenching to strong and smooth. Barley has been grown here since Roman
times.
Until the 1940s Norfolk boasted scores of breweries; by the mid-1980s just
one remained. The smallest of the current dozen is the Brancaster Brewery; one
of the newest is Elveden Ales, set up by a school-leaver in her gap year.
Nelson's Blood Bitter, bitter with a splash of rum, is the brew to ask for at
the Lord Nelson in Burnham Thorpe, where the interior has survived largely
unaltered for 400 years.
Horatio Nelson was brought up in the village parsonage, until he left to join
the Navy at the age of 12. In February 1793 he entertained the whole village to
a meal in the pub, which now draws Nelson enthusiasts from all over the world.
It continues to serve excellent food: don't miss a scrumptious pudding called
Nelson's Mess.
Walking along the edge of the marshes westwards from Burnham Deepdale the
next morning, we see flocks of pink-footed and Brent geese, and pass old mussel
pits, dilapidated fishermen's huts and patches of reed bed being cut for
thatching.
At Brancaster, the North Norfolk coast path turns inland and we walk along
grassy tracks overhung by wind-shaped beeches.
Our lunch destination is the Lifeboat Inn at Thornham, where Thomas Large,
the fisherman who supplies the pub's mussels, joins us in the bar. Each spring
seed mussels are harvested in the Wash and laid down in beds in Brancaster Bay.
The plump mussels we are eating are around four years old.
The Coast Hopper bus arrives bang on time and carries us back to Deepdale
Farm. The driver is Ben Colson, who helped to set up this service, which runs
between Hunstanton and Sheringham, 10 years ago. It's won several awards and
letters have arrived from near and far praising its reliability and helpfulness.
"It took all morning to walk there and just ten minutes to get back. What was
the point of that?" demands Ros.
Time to go home: the dog collapses into the car, Miranda plugs into her CD
player, and Ros turns the heater up. It's amazing how much we have learnt in the
past two days: about barley and brewing, the migration of geese, the role of the
marshes in stemming coastal erosion, the Battle of Trafalgar and the
transportation of Nelson's body in a barrel of rum, how mussels filter-feed on
plankton… My eyes close; luckily the mighty brave is doing the driving.
Norfolk Nuggets
Jolly Sailors pub, Brancaster Staithe (01485 210314,
www.jollysailors.co.uk) Lord Nelson,
Burnham Thorpe (01328 738241,
www.nelsonslocal.co.uk) Lifeboat Inn, Thornham (01485 512236,
www.lifeboatinn.co.uk) Marsh Larder
and Tearooms, Holkham (01328 711285 ) Real Ale Shop, Branthill Farm (01328
710810, www.therealaleshop.co.uk)
On Yer Bike Cycle Hire, Wells-next-the-Sea (01328 820719,
www.norfolkcyclehire.co.uk),
adults £11 a day, children £5. Holkham Hall (01328 710227,
www.holkham.co.uk) is open daily except
Tuesday and Wednesday Norfolk Coast Path (01328 850530,
www.nationaltrail.co.uk). Coast
Hopper bus (01553 776980,
www.norfolkgreen.co.uk).
Teepee basics
Teepees sleeping up to six can be booked in advance from Deepdale Farm, Burnham
Deepdale (01485 210256
www.deepdalefarm.co.uk for £75 a night Sunday to Thursday or £90 a night at
weekends, including mattresses, chairs, barbecue, lantern and cast-iron chiminea
for heat. The farm also offers year-round camping, a backpackers' hostel and
information centre and hosts jazz and food festivals.
