Cromer. Famous for crabs innit? And, erm, well I thought was about it really. Anyway, I’d agreed to meet up with some East Anglia / Lincolnshire based mates for a bit of a lad’s weekend, so what the hell? What’s the worst that could happen I thought as I nervously packed the car on Friday afternoon and began the 4 hour trip from base camp.

To be honest, I’d had an eye on the usual surf forecasting apps all week and despite a week of flat, it was predicting 3-4ft on the Saturday. Hmm, yeah, we’ll see I thought and set off with my board, Spotify and a flask of coffee for company. The plan was that as we’re all pretty much novices, we’d grab a quick lesson, early doors, and then get some time to ourselves later on.

Once I’d passed approximately 200 tractors and caravans on the road from Kings Lynn, parking was plentiful along the top of the cliffs to the North of the town, plus parking is available in the many side streets leading from the main road out of town. From there it’s a short jaunt down the cliffs to the promenade and along into the throbbing metropolis.

After a tremendous evening meal at Craft Burger, New Street (get one of their Dirty Burgers down, lads) we set off about 8-ish for Glide Surf School on the promenade. A word to the wise, there isn’t much open at that time but we did manage to grab a pastry and a brew from the town Co-op.

Shout out at this point to the guys at Glide Surf School. A great bunch and couldn’t do enough to help, giving shop discounts and even loaning my mates a couple of boards free of charge after the lesson for the rest of the morning.

A few things to watch out for. The groynes (stop sniggering at the back) can get in the way as the tide comes in and you find yourself surfing closer to the shore. Similarly, longshore drift can take you south if you’re not careful, and trust me, you don’t want to end up in Great Yarmouth.

Other than us it was pretty quiet. We had a bodyboarder out there on his tod and another couple of guys mixing it with the surf school but after the lesson we had the place to ourselves.

Being a family-friendly seaside resort, there’s plenty of other activities for the rest of your brood to partake in whilst you embarrass yourself in front of the pensioners slowly congregating on the seafront. Pitch and putt, museums, the pier, crazy golf, ice creams, tat shops, they’re all here in buckets and spades.

So, after three hours in the water battling the waves and the incoming tide we were pretty much done for so took the opportunity to avail ourselves of Cromer’s other ‘delights’, namely cod & chips and a few local ales.

For evening entertainment, things are somewhat limited. I think we tried every pub in town that night and came to the conclusion that the Wellington was alright if you fancied some live sport, the Albion was the place if you fancied a pint and a fight (not necessarily in that order) and the Hotel de Paris bar was for your more discerning (older!) crowd. Give the Indian On The Cliff restaurant a swerve as it was probably the most disappointing jahlfrezi I’ve ever had – and that includes the curry-from-a-tin I had from a restaurant in Ibiza circa 1995.

Probably next time I might suggest driving a few miles up the road to East Runton and giving that a whirl. But other than that, not a bad day out.