Suffolk here we come

After a delay due to the van needing an MOT, new cam belt and then an engine mount replacement we eventually hit the road on 12th March on a cold but sunny day.

If you read the last adventure, Calais, here we come - The Travelling McWillies you will read that we broke down and had to be recovered to Calais ferryport and then back to base by the RAC. Since then the Mac shack has had a new near side wheel bearing and two new front tyres fitted and the tracking checked and adjusted so that was a very expensive Christmas!

For this trip we opted to take the trailer so that we could safely and legally take the paddle boards, wet suits and ebikes without overloading the van.

Our first stop was a car park in the village of Hadleigh, ///table.soup.homelands and so we joined the M-11 and headed north past Stansted airport, Braintree and Sudbury where we stopped to buy our dinner for tonight at Aldi. 

We thought that the car park here would be good for an overnight stop but there were signs prohibiting that so we continued to our first choice, a gravel car park in Hadleigh, next to a childrens play area and a building site where new houses were being built.

As we turned into Cork lane we thought that we had got it wrong as it seemed to be the entrance to the building site but, as Sue was unhitching the trailer so that Andy could back out of the road a lovely local lady pulled up behind us and told us that the car park was actually ahead of us and on the right so we carried on and found a lovely spot in the empty car park.

We parked, on a slight slope, and set the new alarms on the ebikes and got the gas and heating on. Time for a brew and a bit of Youtube I think, test the ee signal on our brand new Samsung S25's..........YES, 5G and 4 bars!

Sue made a lovely dinner of Pasta, Tofu and Olives and then we said goodnight and crashed out with one ear listening out for ebike alarms and unwelcome visitors.

13th

Well, what a great nights sleep! No visitors and no alarms. Andy was up at 06:40 and sat with a tea whilst updating this blog using the fantastic ee signal to hot spot to the laptop.

Sue surfaced at about 08:00, (unheard of!) and another tea was consumed whilst we both chatted about was was happening on the building site next door and the general comings and goings in the car park.

We were going to visit RAF Wattisham today as that is where our Grandson is going to be stationed after his (army) passing out parade in June and we wanted to 'suss' it out and visit the aviation museum, but first it's time for our porrige and banana breakfast in our new picnic cups! More on them later.

On arriving at Wattisham we discovered that the museum doesn't open until April so we carried on towards the Dunwich area.

We headed for Dunwich beach to see if the rumours were correct, we had heard that there were new signs asking vanners not to park overnight!

Passing through the Dunwich forest we checked the Doughnut car park (Fredricks mount) in the forest and were pleased to see that there were no height barriers at the entrance.

We parked in the Dunwich beach car park and popped into the cafe to swap our £7 for a couple of Mochas and therefore give something back to the local community. There is also a donation box just by the door to the cafe.

A quick walk down to the sea and along the nature reserve and then we got back in the warm and set off to the forest as the rumours were true and there were indeed new signs.

We pulled into the Fredricks mount car park and immediately discovered more new signs so after a few photos and droning we checked out a few third choices and decided on the Blythburgh railway restoration car park ///stood.invite.picnic so off we went again, hoping that this would be the place where we could stay for the night.

We parked  facing the the entrance and Andy put the drone up before donating a few quid towards the restoration fund.

14th

We had a fairly quiet night even though the road was quite close and we awoke refreshed. We took a few photos and then headed back to Dunwich beach.

Sue made a few sandwiches and put them in our new picnic boxes which we had bought before leaving base and after filling our drinks bottles up we set off towards Walberswick to test out Sues ability to walk after her foot operation. We made it to Walberswick and found The Old Bell Inn where we spent a couple of hours warming by the fire and chatting to the locals.

Soon it was time to head back to the van and we set off along the beach, struggling on the pebbles until, at last, we saw the van in the distance. Once back in the warm we started her up as a young couple came running towards us. They had broken down in their VW camper and wanted to know if we had some jump leads. We had and so we drove to their van and afer a few minutes we got them going and then continued to Fredricks mount car par in the woods which had signs to discourage overnight parking but we decided to chance our luck as we agreed that if we got asked to move on we could move on to Blythburgh station again so we settled in front on the TV until eventually giving in and crashing into bed for a well needed rest.

Tomorrow we will be heading into Norfolk so check the next page for more adventures.