Hunstanton Beach

September & October were our big “day trip” months. A lot of places are closed for the winter or are closed on Sundays. I had found a crystal factory up in King’s Lynn that I wanted to check out, and I was happy to see that they were open 7 days a week.

We had another couple who was interested in checking out the crystal factory with us, so we headed up there one Sunday in late October. Well, we drove up there only to find out that they only do their demonstrations Monday through Friday. I was so disappointed! And I felt dumb for missing that on their website. We still looked through the gift shop, and the other couple we were with made some purchases, but I really felt like I was wasting our Sunday for all of us.

We found a restaurant nearby called Frankie & Benny’s, which is an Italian-American 50s style restaurant. It reminded me so much of home; I loved it! I felt like I was sitting in an Applebee’s or something. I was craving a burger, and it really hit the spot. Over lunch, we decided to drive to a beach, since 1) we were really close to the coast, and 2) Ashlee had never seen the ocean!

The beach I found when I did a search on my phone was about half an hour away. I’m sure there were closer ones (we passed signs for quite a few!), but I had directions to Hunstanton, so that’s where we headed! Our timing was perfect: we got to see the sun set on the ocean!

Apparently, this is one of the few places one can see the sun set over the ocean on the east coast of England. It’s known to be a holiday spot for families, and even in October, we saw a lot of people out and about, even some kids splashing in the water!

While we were watching the sunset and walking up the beach, we saw something pop out of the water. What do you know, a seal!

The picture above is one Ashlee took; my camera wasn’t able to zoom in this close! Isn’t he cute?! We saw him pop up one or two more times, and then he must have decided to swim off.

Hunstanton Beach is also known for its distinctive cliffs:

We had kind of a chilly walk back to the car, since the sun had pretty much set by then, but I was really glad we found something to do that afternoon! We really want to go back to walk the path that connects a lot of the beaches up there, but probably not until the weather gets a little warmer again!