Rebellion Way
by Jenny Brown
Last year I went on my first cycling trip, and as soon as I finished I knew I had to do another one. I decided my next trip would be the rebellion way, a 373km loop starting and ending in Norwich. The route was developed by CyclingUK and gets its name from two historic rebellions in Norfolk, one led by queen Boudicca and the other by Norfolk landowner Robert Kett. I chose it because there is a direct train from Stockport to Norwich (very important), I’d never been to Norfolk and I heard it was really nice, and maybe a little bit because I’d heard Norfolk was flat. My dad, also a keen cyclist, joined me.
Before getting into the details of the trip, I feel I can’t talk about the adventures I get to go on now without going back in time a little bit. In 2021 my mostly dormant childhood Eczema came back with a vengeance. In the early days of bird outdoors I was constantly cancelling on hikes last minute and I often found myself wishing I could go on adventures but knowing I couldn’t because of how unpredictable my skins was. Fast forward to 2024 and I started medication that has changed my life and opened up a new world of adventures - starting with doing a half marathon, a 4 day cycle trip and the Komoot rally all in the space of about 2 weeks - not sure what I was thinking there. And next of course, the rebellion way.
The first day started with a boring slog out of Norwich, but we were on lovely country lanes in no time, followed by our first bit of off-road riding. My dad is very much a road cyclist so it was a bit of a shock to him when we found ourselves cycling straight across the middle of a field.
The second day was a big one, I had been optimistic and planned to cycle 109km on the second day which would be the longest ride I’d ever done, but I kept reminding myself that all I had to do all day was get from A to B so if it took me 10 hours, so be it - as long as I kept peddling and eating I’d be fine. I might have thought twice about this approach to planning if I’d known that we were going to spend about an hour walking through completely uncyclable sandy fields before we’d even hit 30km. The day was rescued by some brilliant trails through Thetford forest, country lanes and fun single track (and then a bit more sand for good measure), before cycling into Kings Lynn. We also saw so much wildlife - deer, wild ponies and two hares!
The third day was when my legs really started to get angry at me, and when the headwind was the worst. At one point, we cycled only a few miles on a trail from Heacham to Hunstanton but the headwind made it feel like we were barely moving. Of course once we got out of the wind we found the hills - relative to a lot of the country Norfolk is flat, but while north Norfolk doesn’t have much in the way of significant hills, it is a constant up and down. At least this way the hills almost always had a guaranteed downhill following them, and the route followed some lovely quiet country lanes. We also had an amazing lunch at a quite fancy pub - I’m not sure how happy they were to see two dirty, sweaty cyclists rock up.
We started the fourth day on country lanes through to a place called Great Snoring where we took a slight detour to get a photo with the sign. But the best part of the day was at the end, when we joined a cycle path that ran alongside a steam railway, finding ourselves racing the steam train as we rode our last 20km or so. The last day was only 30km, but it didn’t quite feel real waking up and knowing we’d be finished by lunchtime, it’s amazing how quickly the routine sets in. We followed the steam train further along to the broads, before getting back onto country lanes and then cycle paths into the city.
It’s adventures like this that make me so grateful to be well enough to do them, and its communities like bird outdoors that have helped me to think trips like this are for me and encourage me to challenge myself, but also remember that adventures should be fun too. The rebellion way was a great route for this - depending how you split it, whether you choose to camp or stay in B and B’s you can really make it as hard or as easy as you want. I’d never been to Norfolk before, but after those 5 days I’d seen an awful lot of it and I can confirm, it is really nice.