Unknown territory

Towards the end of my meeting, this morning, I popped onto Google Maps to check the route from Thetford back to the Minx's house, near Manchester. The route was pretty boring: head west to the A1(M) and then head north. M62. M61. Blah.

I looked longingly at the unexplored country to the north of Thetford and I thought about heading north-west instead and travelling more or less as the crow flies. And then I remembered all the other times I've decided to take an interesting route back and the first indication I've had of nearing home is seeing discarded milk cartons with my photo on the back.

So I resolved to be sensible and take the simplest, most straightforward route home and simply assumed that my satnav's route would be in accordance with Google's. But wait! The road we took out of Thetford was heading not west but north towards King's Lynn. Suddenly, I felt rather excited.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the land around these parts is notably flat and on a sunny day like today, the sky is like an enormous blue bowl - so much higher than the sky at home - daubed with the occasional brilliant white cloud. At first I was heading through woodland but then that fell away, which was around the time I saw the automotive graveyard in today's picture.

By now the place names on the white route signs were completely alien: you'd never find somewhere called 'Quadring Eaudyke' in Cumbria. And even the names on the green signs were unfamiliar: Holbeach and Sleaford. I carried on up the A17, the single carriageway road like a black ribbon laid across the wide, flat fields of grain. There were farmhouses with huge barns and small windmills, which reminded me of Kansas*(and, therefore, Superman). Crossing the Great Ouse, I had a sudden urge to travel down the broad Mississippi. The landscape was beginning to have an effect on me.

And then Doncaster appeared on a green sign and the otherworldly nature of my journey began to fade until, mundanely, I found myself on the A1. I was back in the England I knew, of heavy traffic and service stations, queues and tiredness. But that journey was quite magical and I'm going to go back there with the Minx and explore a bit more.