The landowners at nearby Holkham Hall had fir trees planted, and in the soil were orchid seeds.
Nature does the rest.
There are several small colonies around the woods, but this was/is the most accessible.
The reason for driving from Dover to Wells-Next-the-Sea and back was to complete the UK and Irish Orchid set, as it were. As apart from the legendary Ghost Orchid, by the end of Saturday I would have seen all other species.
It has taken some 14 years, twelve if you look outside of Kent, and involved two two-week holidays to Northumberland, and trips to the New Forest, the Welsh coast, Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Essex, Suffolk and this year, Ireland.
How many species, I hear you ask. Well, depends.
As the Lindisfarne Helleborine is no longer considered a separate species from Dune Helleborine, but was when I saw it. And does the Tongue Orchid or Giant Orchid now be considered UK species as they have naturalised?
I don't know.
Exactly.
We left Dover at half five, having to go up the M20, contraflow and heavy traffic, as the M2 was closed until half ten.
It was a glorious morning, lots of sunshine and little traffic, which was a pleasant surprise.
Over the Thames, or rather under it, then along to the M11 and up through Essex, into Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and finally Norfolk.
Traffic in Brandon was light, and sadly no planes seen moving at RAF Lakenheath, up through Breckland, Thetford Forest to Swaffham, Fackenham and Wells.
Queens Anne's Drive is a long car park owned by Holkham, and folks were arriving to go to the beach. We parked, then set off away from the soon to be busy beach, though light woodland, past a pond, then up and over some dune sacks via a boardwalk to the beach.
From here is was 3,300 steps, or so what3words told me, so we wet off west, along the path at the edge of the woods, until we came to a crossing where two paths met, and just the other side were six tiny plants.
This was it.These were it.
Creeping Lady's Tresses.
Related to Autumn Lady's Tresses, clearly, but hairier, and much rarer.
I lay down to get shots, whilst Jools looked for other plants. None found, so as the temperature rose, we turned round to walk back to the car, the whole hike having taken just under two hours by the time we reached the car, and just about every parking space taken.
According to maps there is an A road that runs along the north Norfolk coast. This is a joke on all those visitors who think its a quick way of getting between Wells and Sheringham or Cromer. We have footpaths wider than this road in Kent.
I should point out that I am a son of Norfolk, and revel in that fact, and love it that the A149 that runs through places like Cley and Blakeney is barely wide enough for a single car, let alone two to pass, or the buses that come along every hour.
The 15 mile drive took best part of 45 minutes, arriving in Sheringham at the busiest time, with the market taking over half the car park beside the North Norfolk Railway.
No matter, we were not going here, our destination was a side road beside a housing estate, on the other side of the road was a nature reserve, Beeston & Sheringham Commons.
On here was my last species, the Marsh Fragrant.
Until a few years ago, all Fragrants were in the same family, then some DNA work was done, and the suspected differences meant that we had three fragrant species: the more common, er, Common (or Chalk), Heath and Marsh.
We have the Chalk in Kent. I had seen a single spike of Heath in Durham a decade back (still counts), so just the Marsh to see, and the Latin name means dense flowered, I though these would be easy to spot, large pink-lilac orchids of majestic height.
The site is large, and of different habitats, and even when on the notice board it confirmed the species here, no hint of where it might be found.
Marsh was the give away, and in the Central Mire we concentrated our search, and after an hour of huffing, puffing and stepping in muddy pools and bogs, I finally found two small spikes.
I had already found Marsh Helleborines, so pretty sure we were in the right place.Ten yards away were two much larger spikes, worth the wet foot I got from the floating fen.
Job done.
Unlike in a video game, I didn't get an extra life or added powers, just the job done.
The phone lead us back to the car, I was just about done in. 15,000 steps, but no actual pain, just the effort in what was a very warm day.
We drove back to the main road, then down through my old stamping ground around North Walsham, where we stopped off at the pub beside the river in Coltishall, just for all times sake.
Turns our pizza and ice cold amber ale is perfect when munched and supped beside the river in the beer garden.
Then down to the Fine City of Norwich, onto the A47 and down the A11 home.We had said that we had been very lucky on the day, with no hold ups the whole journey up, and during our time in the Fine County. Turns out fate had been saving things up for our return trip, and on the Crossing at Dartford.
A car had come to grief on the Kent side, and there was just the lane for the A2 London-bound closed. But a combination of this and rubbernecking caused talbacks to Brentwood, and we inched along taking 75 minutes to reach the A2 and free of jams.
We got home 13 hours after leaving, with just enough energy to have cheese and crackers and two bottles of the new beers.A fine, fine day.
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