Bikepacking the Old Chalk Way – Part 5 From Woodlands to the Coast

Welcome to the final part of my five-part bikepacking adventure along the Old Chalk Way, a 358-mile journey from Lyme Regis on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast to Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. This historic route loosely follows Britain’s oldest road—the Greater Ridgeway, a prehistoric pathway dating back 5,000 years—traversing rolling green hills, farmland doubletrack, tarmac back lanes, woodland bridleways, and forestry fire roads.

In this episode, I wake up in a stunning bluebell woodland, only to be greeted by the unexpected sound of gunfire. After a stop for bread and butter pudding breakfast, I chat with a local about the surprising horse-to-human ratio in the area and how equine welfare is better than human welfare.
From there, we pedal deeper into Norfolk, passing through Kingswood and tackling sand for the first time on this trip—a whole new challenge.

In Thetford, we visit the town famous for being home to the Dad’s Army Museum, before taking refuge from the relentless sun in the shadow of a historic church. The day ends with what might be the best wild camping spot of the entire journey—a moment of pure tranquility beneath the open sky.

On the final day, I take on Peddars Way, exploring the ancient ruins of Castle Acre Priory and Castle before making my way to the finish line at Holme-next-the-Sea. As I dip my wheel into the North Sea, I reflect on the adventure, the landscapes, and what’s next for the channel.

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morning so we made it out alive from the woods last night there was a guy shooting stuff like all well not all night but very late uh into the night and then he’s up again before me at like 5:00 a.m shooting again i don’t know if he’s aiming for me but luckily if he was he missed um yeah so I don’t know how far we’re going to go today we’ve got about 90 miles to go i’m just going to just play it by ear see how we get on and hopefully we’ll be in Norfolk at some point today start being back on the uh on the ridgeway again i could be there right now looks just like it doesn’t it really is a beautiful morning absolutely stunning i think it’s going to be another hot one today but we’re up nice and early so we can get some miles in early in the cooler cooler weather i’m hoping to find a nice cafe today have a nice sit down coffee yeah I’m conscious that I’m constantly talking about food but you can’t go come bike packing without sampling the uh the local culinary delights and eating a ton of food i think I’ve actually burnt less calories than I’ve eaten in this trip i bet so much that house that back there looked like a little Hansel and Gretle house i just don’t understand how a few rich people can own so much land just a few people but then they just deny access to the majority of us another massive walled off estate it’s a lot bumpier than I was expecting it to be today to be honest it’s a few little hills bit of bread and butter pudding for breakfast nice coffee got scotch egg and a quissant for later oh this is a cool bridge 15th or 16th century packhorse bridge i think one of my favorite things about this route is the fact that you get to see quite a lot of cool things along the way like I don’t know Stonehenge the giant with the big dick you know all the good stuff and it’s been a while since we’ve seen something of interest to me anyway uh so yeah I like that bridge pretty cool looked like it was out of uh Lord of the Rings like a little hobbit was going to be walking over it at any minute there is a lot more climbing today than my bike computer would have you believe we’re going up another little hill i don’t know maybe we’re going to get like 20 miles into this and that’ll be all the climbing done for the whole ride and it’s just going to be flat i don’t know maybe one of the uh old guys at the cafe was telling me that there’s more horses around here than people and uh the horses that are here get treated better than the people he was telling me like all the people that come in and actually look after the horses are just treated so poorly and paid so badly that’s him there in his uh in his cool little Morgan i think this area is like big for uh training and breeding raceh horses from what I can tell i think what it is is like they see it as an excuse to pay people less than what they’re worth because they’re doing something that they enjoy doing they want to work with horses i used to work in the computer games industry as a tester and they treat their staff incredibly poorly in the computer games industry because I think it’s because they think they’re doing something they want to do but at the end of the day it’s a job and it’s not it’s not all it’s what you imagine it is going to be it’s hard so people should be paid fairly shouldn’t they hello hello fat bottom girls they’ll be riding today say coke i say can you say Joe train i say bicycle bicycle bicycle bicycle i want to ride girl I want to ride my bike i swear the lad driving that tractor was about 12 sand is a new surface on this trip so I’ve been at battle on the beach again hopefully not too much sand oh it’s tough going loaded up we are like 66 miles away from the beach so don’t think we’re nearly there we’re not i’m not sure why it’s sandy i believe I could be wrong i believe we are in the King’s Wood i think that’s what it’s called it would make a great place for camping but we’re going to go on a bit more should we play Count the Rings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 1 2 3 4 12 16 28 9 17 It’s about 80 years old I guess i guess 80 80 years old just chopped down just like that or maybe it fell down i don’t know yeah 80 how How long does a a pine tree live for i don’t think they last as long as an oak tree do they that’s the Kingswood finished the Kingswood commemorates the silver jubilee of King George V and it was planted in 1935 so that tree that we counted the rings on I was probably about right you know what’s next we are going into Fetford we’re not going into Fetford forest which is something I’d like to do but I really enjoy the Kingswood that was good we go through Fatford and then I think we’re going to get onto the Ped’s Way more sand it’s absolutely lovely around here i’m loving this great section fatford never been before no idea what it’s like it’s me and the bloke from uh dad’s army captain Manorin a thousand years ago Fetford was the sixth largest town in England and now it’s home to the Dad’s Army Museum and the most surprising thing about Feet for me was just how dead it was on a Thursday lunchtime absolutely dead this is quite a nice town though the heat the heat the heat it is getting hot quite hot i think I’m going to find a bit of shade and just have a bit of a chill for a little bit i just stopped for a minute at this church very nice church found a spot of shade just had a bit of a panic attack because I couldn’t find my phone i don’t know everything’s on your phone isn’t it like we’re so reliant on our mobile phones but don’t know what like 30 years ago not many people had a mobile phone and uh without it you’re always a bit bit lost don’t you i think that’s one of the things that I want to try and do is try and become less reliant on my phone anyway stop for a cup of tea i’m in two minds at the minute like whether to just press on and get to the coast or whe to find somewhere to stop what I think I’m going to do is just ride a little bit um and then if I see somewhere good I’m stopping I think but it’s still only like half 12 so I really could get there today but then I get there and I’ll be like where I’m going to go next so I don’t know decisions but we’re just going to chill for a bit i think it is very hot again i reckon this will do bit early it’s only like half two i’m not going to put the tent up yet but I’m just going to chill for a bit we’ve got about I think it’s about 40 45 mi to go 40 mi i think it’s totally worth stopping early for this i mean look at the place you don’t get a campsite better than that i think I’m going to have a decent night’s sleep at least I hope so anyway yeah so last bit tomorrow can’t believe um I’ve made it this far really to be honest it was uh a much easier trip than I thought it was going to be i mean tomorrow could be horrendous but I don’t think so i’ll do a summary of what I thought of the route tomorrow when we actually get to the end because tempting fate otherwise in the eye right I’ll see you in the morning morning slept like an absolute baby last night um I think it’s a combination of a few things it takes me about a week to get to the point where um I’m just comfortable uh sleeping rough in a tent bike packing and also this spot i just know that nobody’s going to find me here and yeah it’s just a nice relaxing spot that’s quiet and out the way and yeah really nice i really struggled to get out of bed this morning cuz I just I just liked being here so much to be honest yeah so today 40 odd miles to go and we’re off to home next to the sea my eyes look really puffy don’t they but that’s I think that’s hay fever that’s not because of my sleep i’ve just seen a woman walking two dogs in her car so the dogs were on the gravel road she was in her car with a window down just driving alongside them never seen that before [Music] we might not have hills in Norfolk but they have got headwinds and slight inclines which feel like hills just been to the service station on the I think it’s the A1 is it cuz there’s literally nowhere else to go so I had a McDonald’s which I wouldn’t normally have but I was starving and I’ve got some water from the petrol station and chocolate it’s slow progress today it’s a bit chilly so I’ve just stopped to put some more clothes on the wind is doing me in i’ve got 25 miles to go hopefully this chocolate will get me to the end so we are in Castle Acre and that was uh Castle Acre Priary really nice actually really cool old buildings one of the things I love about this route is just visiting all of these um like historical places that you might not get to see normally and then behind me we’ve got the castle sightseeing’s over we got about 20 miles to go i really want to get the drone out at these places but I’m like seems a bit naughty i shouldn’t be doing it so I didn’t it’s also a bit windy as well and my little DJI Neo doesn’t cope at all very well in the wind so probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway and we’re back in fields in the middle of nowhere again looking forward to them i’m looking out for places to sleep as well so I’m going to get there i was thinking about camping on the beach and I still might but just going to take in my options see what options there are i think that’s seen better days must be a high point around here oh I’m missing the hills you probably think I’m mad when I say I’m missing the hills I don’t mean these long drawn out ones that just aren’t they steep and just never end i mean the big ones with the big views and the massive fast descents down the other side that’s what I’m missing it reminds me a lot of the last bit to John when I did the GB divide this bit it just seems to go on and on back on the sand again just for the extra bit of challenge i mean you look at the the route i’ve got like 25 miles in 500 ft of climbing so you look at that and you think “Oh yeah that’s not going to be too bad that’s going to be quite easy isn’t it?” But don’t expect that when you look at a route because you don’t know what the surface is going to be like when you’re riding off road could be like this this part of the trail is just not fun to ride it’s just got these horrible ridges all the way along here it’s all bumpy and uncomfortable and just slow and I’m averaging like 7 8 miles an hour i just want to get there i just hope that this ends on the road again oh beautiful 5 miles to go four miles to go three miles to go sorry had to stop the countdown cuz I seen the coffee and then I sat on a bench which said something like “Is the country that you were born in going to be a better place when you die?” Food for thought eh right 2.5 to go two miles to go i can see the sea one more mile one more mile nearly there come on nearly there nearly there that’s it we made it hopefully you can hear me yeah oh man that was that was something else today i thought it was going to be much easier than that today yeah i mean okay highlights of the trip so definitely Dorsit was a highlight of the trip low lights uh bit after um Luton probably um and then yeah today’s been very very tough but yeah if you want to do this route it’s a fantastic route i really loved it um despite there being some tough times you know got through it this sort of marks the a significant point in my life i suppose now maybe I’m being dramatic there but I am no longer going to be unemployed starting a new job next week it’s not exactly what I’d hoped for so the search will continue for something better but I’m going to carry on with the YouTube channel because I feel like people are enjoying it and um yeah we’re going to go and dip the wheel in the sea and I’m going to go to the pub and then I’ll see you on the next video thanks for watching please like comment subscribe goodbye that’s as far as I’m taking it i don’t want to get swept out to the North Sea right let’s go to the pub bye-bye