Another scorcher and another history-packed day. 75 miles of riding but it felt like more because of all the photo breaks. Good job I’m riding solo because a ride partner might not be so keen on the camera and drone stops.

After yesterday’s 16-hour day — another case of relatvely low mileage but lots of stops — I was taken for a pub meal by Lloyd Townsend, owner of Townsend’s, one of Cambridge’s 15 or so bike shops. (He also owns Ison Distribution, UK distributor of Fidlock bottles, the attached-by-magnets bidons I’m using on this trip — no other bottle set-up would work on my weeny frame with the Tailfin framebag.)

Knowing I wanted to reach Holkham on the north Norfolk coast the next day he suggested taking the tarmac-topped off-road Mere Way cycleway out of Cambridge and then on to Ely, Littleport, and Kings Lynn.

So that’s what I did.

At the wonderfully-named Grunty Fen Road not far from Ely I drafted behind the Hitchin Nomad road club, out on a 100-mile ride. “Have you joined us?,” I was asked. “We have the membership secretary here with a form.”

The club stopped for a coffee break, I made a beeline for Oliver Cromwell’s house.

From Littleport I followed the River Great Ouse and its navgiation channels dug in the 1600s.

Downham Market’s village sign boasts that the town was home to the young Horatio Nelson. I was making for his birthplace, twenty or so miles further north. First I had to ride through Kings Lynn. Heading for a statue I assumed was that of Nelson it turned out to be of Captain George Vancouver, the British naval officer, navigator and surveyor for which the Canadian city is named.

Exiting Kings Lynn on the Sandringham rail trail it was early evening by the time I reached Burnham Market, and its posh shops and pubs. However, I was heading for Nelson’s birthplace at Burnham Thorpe. Assuming there would be a substantial memorial I was surprised by the small plaque marking the spot where the rectory where he was born had once stood.