The 369-mile Hull to Harwich Cycle Route was one of the first long-distance routes to be completed by Sustrans, opening an amazing seven years ahead of schedule thanks to the enthusiastic support of all the local authorities along the way! However, this was only done by using several interim sections of route and including some off-road stretches that are not yet up to an acceptable standard.
Note: you can order the map of the Hull to Fakenham route through the link at the bottom of this page – click on the map cover. At the time of writing the latest version of the map is that printed in 1998. Changes which have been made to the route since the map was printed can be found here. A guide, The Hull-Harwich Holiday Planner, may be available from Lincolnshire Tourism.
The route officially begins at the King Geoge Dock ferry terminal in Hull – it's popular with many Dutch cyclists, who can cycle along much of the east coast of England and catch ferries to or from Holland at both ends of the route. From the dock it winds its way through the back streets of Hull. Unfortunately, the detailed maps of both Hull and Hessle which are provided on the White Rose route map are not on the Hull to Fakenham map. In the absence of clear signposting I found my way out of Hull by getting myself onto the nearest main road, but when the signs ran out in the middle of the Hessle one-way system, I wasted a lot of time hunting round the back streets trying to find the way to the Humber Bridge.
Once I'd found my way onto it, having had my route card stamped at the bridge information centre, the scale of the bridge was overwhelming, even if the views from it of the featureless estuary were less than inspiring. For 17 years after its opening in 1981 it was the longest single span suspension bridge in the world – 2,200 metres between its anchorages. It bends more than three metres in winds of 80mph and is so big that the bridge towers are 36mm further apart at the top than the bottom to take account of the curvature of the earth. The scale of the engineering is particularly obvious from the cycle tracks because they have to dodge round the massive cables and towers.
From the far end of the bridge I left the route to reach my B&B in the tiny village of Barrow Haven. I woke during the night to the sound of rain beating against the window but fortunately it had cleared by morning, although a strong south-westerly wind persisted all day as I set off into the Lincolnshire Wolds.
Near Barnetby le Wold, I decided to avoid a track which the map described as "rough, muddy when wet" and used a stretch of busy main road instead. Soon after I rejoined the route, though, I met some other Hull to Harwich riders who'd gone the proper way and said it wasn't too bad. Other than this, I had a very pleasant run through some charming villages in a little-visited part of the country. At Beelsby the link from Grimsby joins the route and together they turn south and climb over the top of the Wolds – nothing too demanding though, mostly a long, steady crawl.
I left my fellow riders at Market Rasen – they were taking it easy at about 30 to 40 miles a day. On the flat countryside I made better progress, despite the wind, but even so Lincoln Cathedral seemed to be stuck in the far distance for a very long time. The final leg into Lincoln is circuitous; instead of heading straight into the city centre from Nettleham, it diverts through Riseholme and Burton so that it can cross the ring road on an overpass, and maybe also with the idea of serving the university campus at Riseholme. At the end of a long afternoon the extra few miles were not appreciated; nor was the bumpy track with a few muddy spots.
I arrived at the Castle just before it closed at five o'clock, having done a complete circuit of its walls trying to find the entrance, and had my route card stamped. Not for the only time on my Sustrans journeys, the staff had difficulty finding the official stamp, which suggests that the Route Card scheme is little used, which in turn suggests that those who complete the full route are few and far between. Lincoln is a delightful city and well worth spending some time in. It doesn't make much provision for cyclists, but it's small and it's better to push your bike along the cobbled, pedestrianised streets.
At Lincoln the route changes direction through 180°, and heads east towards Woodhall Spa, where I was to spend the night. The road out of the city was quite busy – by now it was rush hour – but the traffic soon vanished as I sped through the country lanes, with the wind on my back at last. The road twists and turns a bit and the current route includes a 5-mile stretch of B-road. The intention is that the final route will follow the bank of the River Witham, which will be shorter, but it'll miss out the lovely villages along the way, and the road really isn't too busy – I saw a barn owl between Fiskerton and Bardney and they prefer quieter places.
I left Woodhall Spa next morning with the wind still on my back and soon joined a tiny lane along the bank of the River Witham. Fortunately, and unlike most Fenland rivers, this stretch of the Witham winds just enough to be interesting. From Tattershall Bridge you can see the keep of Tattershall Castle about a mile off. Beyond it is RAF Coningsby, where the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is kept.
The few miles to Langrick Bridge are pretty well straight and the first part of the final, equally straight riverside route into Boston along the trackbed of the old Boston to Lincoln railway has now been opened beyond Anton's Gowt. I think I'd rather stick to the road, which does at least wind a bit! Boston is dominated by its church tower, the famous 'Boston Stump', the tower of St Botolph's Church. At 272 feet high it's the tallest church tower in the country.
A few more miles of country lanes took me to Fosdyke Bridge, where the extremely busy A17 crosses the River Welland on the only bridge for miles. The latest on-line Sustrans route map shows that a dedicated cycle path has been provided, but for me it was a matter of sharing the road with juggernauts hurtling past at 60mph! Apparently, though, funds are being sought to build a new route away from the road, with a path under the main road bridge, even though it would flood occasionally, to link with a route to Spalding.
From the bridge the route loops out across the countryside to Holbeach St Marks, taking the long route through the village, perhaps to pass the pub? When I went through, the village children were out in the school playground and all dashed to the fence to cheer me past. Clearly, a touring cyclist is still quite a novelty here!
Beyond Holbeach the route twists and turns through the lanes and a missing sign near Fleet caused me a few problems. A succession of small villages – such as Gedney with its enormous church, and Tydd St Mary, where the village shop used to stamp your route card – bring the ride into Wisbech. To be honest, Wisbech was a disappointment, and it is a pity that it was decided to take the route well out of its direct course to pass through here.
No matter how much I searched, I could not find the signs to lead me through the town and across the dual carriageway. Heading out of town some of the signs were missing and on that same stretch I passed a youth centre that had barbed wire on the roof to prevent anyone breaking-in by that means. I suspect that the parallel B-road might have been a better choice for the route. Fortunately, Wisbech was soon left behind and I was out in the country again. At West Walton the church is unusually separated from its tower, presumably to lessen the weight upon the unstable ground.
The approach to Kings Lynn was dismal, ending up on a busy road serving industrial estates, and then a roundabout across the busy A47. Why was it not made a condition of the planning permission that the developers of this site should provide a decent cycle route? The original idea was to provide a riverside route from Wiggenhall to the A47 to join the existing section into Kings Lynn, but there seems to have been no progress with this.
Kings Lynn town centre is a pedestrian area, so there were no cycleway signs, making it difficult to know where to turn off to rejoin the route. I ended up on the ring road but eventually found the cyclepath I was looking for. This led to the very popular cycleway which has been built on the old Hunstanton railway line as far as South Wootton. In North Wootton, though, is one of the most curious pieces of cycle route planning I have come across. The route is diverted off a quiet suburban road onto a very narrow shared footpath only to emerge on the same road a few hundred yards further on. Presumably this is because the footpath serves a school, but why this requires the Hull to Harwich route to be diverted is hard to understand.
From North Wootton, where I stayed the night, the route passes through Castle Rising (I was too early in the day to visit the castle ruins) and crosses the A149 to head for Sandringham. Beyond Sandringham it was originally intended to route the cycleway along the coastline to Hunstanton, but for the moment it follows the high ground inland. For those who think of Norfolk as flat, this will disabuse them. Not that there are any big hills, but the countryside is definitely rolling!
At Ringstead the route turns east and heads for Burnham Market and Burnham Thorpe, birthplace of Admiral Lord Nelson. The main road through pretty Burnham Market is a B-road, so the cycle route diverts through a back street to avoid it. Before I knew it I found myself cycling out of the village, and had to turn round to visit the shops. Then, while I was there, I saw three obviously novice cyclists riding unconcernedly along the main street! Why on earth does Sustrans think that someone who is capable of cycling two or three hundred miles is incapable of handling the traffic on a rural B-road?
From Burnham I decided to take the link into Wells-next-the-Sea, but I soon found that the warning on the map "Route uses byway, surface can be rough" was an understatement. The town was certainly worth the visit, but I returned to the route by an alternative road.
And so to Fakenham, arriving in the town via the old main road, now bypassed and free of traffic, the first part of my Hull to Harwich journey over.This was an exceptionally enjoyable ride with only one or two problems. The worst was definitely the exceptionally rough state of the link route into Wells-next-the-Sea which, in all honesty, I could only recommend to someone on a mountain bike. It is not for anyone riding a loaded touring bike. Related to this was Sustrans' insistence on avoiding any B-roads (let alone A-roads), never mind what the result. The rough track into Wells could have been avoided by using a mile-long stretch of the B1105, for example, bypassing the centre of Burnham Market just because the main street of the village was a B-road seemed just plain daft, and the ride through one of the less salubrious parts of Wisbech could also have been avoided.
Equally annoying were the apparently-pointless diversions including the one in North Wootton and the one north of Lincoln. In both cases it appears that the national route takes a long or awkward way round for the sake of purely local needs. Anyone who can handle a 370-mile bike ride should be able to handle the traffic on a suburban street and doesn't need to be treated the same as a school child.
Since I completed the ride in 1999 there seems to have been little advance on the interim version opened by then. Having said that, there are few parts of the northern section of the route which call for improvement. The off-road route between Lincoln and Woodhall Spa isn't pressing, nor is that between Langrick Bridge and Boston. The two places which do need improvement are Fosdyke Bridge and the southern approach to King's Lynn, and that is where I would rather see any available money spent.
You can either follow through the pages in sequence or go back to pick another route from the list of the NCN routes I've used.
Updated: 27 September 2003 and 1 November 2004: minor changes
Minor update: 15 August 2006