Today's quest was specific: to find Sparrow Dale, a hidden valley within the park. Let's be serious now - how difficult could it be to find a valley?
We arrived to find admission was free, but parking was not. Well not unless you'd payed your National Trust membership.
The day was warm, but this was autumn and you could sense the melancholic mood each time another yellow leaf hit the forest floor. But the park was wonderful, fresh and greener than new money. Setting off under some kind of vast floral lampshade, we headed into the unknown, looking for the dale.
After some fruitless searching we ventured off track, and were soon deep in forest, in an area reminiscent of the Florida Everglades. This, said Sue, hopefully, might be the Dale. But it didn't feel like it. The thing is we didn't really know what we were looking for. With due respect to the authorities, a sign, "This way to Sparrow Dale" would have been handy, but then, probably not half as much fun.
Catching a view of the sea to our right, we turned down a narrow path, that slowly opened up to reveal a vast valley that you just wanted to run across. In the far distance was the sea and on the hillside to our left, a steam train appeared, just like in the "Railway Children." And then the penny dropped, as it tends to. How dumb were we! This was the happy valley. This was Sparrow Dale. Seemingly, some super power had transported a huge part of The Yorkshire Dales and dumped it in north Norfolk. The only mystery was how we didn't find it sooner.
My advice: pay the parking, walk the Dale and release some of those "happy hormones."
Location:The Street,Lowestoft,United Kingdom
A lovely place to ramble and picnic
ReplyDeleteXx