How a tiny microadventure turned into an epic night on the beach.

The team here at Methods likes to get out and about as much as possible but it’s not all about trips to karaoke bars in Tokyo, cycling around Amsterdam or battling the Empire on Tatooine, sometimes adventures can be had closer to home. Introducing… the microadventure.

Fellow Methods Unsound writer Catherine Thompson first noticed the concept of microadventuring. The idea is to “experience the wild and escape from the rushed, mundane real world”. The term was coined by British adventurer and author Alastair Humphreys. A microadventure is an overnight outdoor adventure that is “small and achievable, for normal people with real lives”. Basically, an excuse to go and muck about in the great outdoors without having to travel far, spend much money or plan much.

Big ideas = microadventures

Having spent one very cold, damp but super fun night sleeping on a Cambridgeshire fen (it was honestly fun) we decided it was time to try a summer microadventure at Holkham sands – a huge beach stretching several miles East from the brilliantly named Wells-next-the-Sea on the North Norfolk coast.

The beauty, indeed the point of a microadventure is that is doesn’t require a huge amount of preparation. However, pulling together some basic stuff is the difference between super fun times and a sleepless, shivering miserable night. I’m not going to bore you with a full list of required kit but a decent bivvy bag is somewhere near the top. The things that took the longest to prepare on this trip was the lamb stew which Catherine put together a few hours before we set off. It was a damn fine stew. Eating outdoors at sunset. On a beach. With friends.

Booze, as per usual is the next most important thing. The first consideration should always be whether you can comfortably carry your supplies. Walking a mile or two, or indeed travelling further (by bike perhaps) can really get you to a more secluded spot and therefore a more adventurous time. You don’t want to be lugging a keg of beer up a mountain, or in our case over the dunes. Turns out that two bottles of wine and a few ales is not enough for four people. I would strongly recommend taking a bottle of spirits, at the very least a hip flask. Not only is single malt whisky one of the finest achievements of humankind it’s also lightweight and can sure keep you warm.

Oh yeah, we also took a bottle of ginger wine. What? You don’t know about Ginger wine?

At one and a half hours from Cambridge or two and three-quarter hours from London, the journey would ideally be shorter (previous fen microadventure involved a 30 minute cycle ride). It was totally worth the extra travelling for such a stunning location. We didn’t set out until gone 5pm and by the time we’d bought the aforementioned booze it was early evening when we arrived at the car park and most people were heading away from the beach to their cars.

My theory (which has yet to be disproved) is that if you walk even a few minutes away from any given beauty spot or tourist attraction you can quickly leave the crowds behind. Finding an element of seclusion is definitely one of the goals of a microadventure so a half an hour walk along the beach, skirting the edge of the pine woods and traversing the sand dunes was no hardship.

There was a compromise to be had between finding some shelter from the not-very-strong wind, a location that was out of sight and secluded, somewhere that was near a source of firewood (I heard the woods was good for this) and ideally somewhere with a view.

Making fire is excellent. You know that. This is a core principle. A fire on a beach is something special. We dug a pit (picture four of us digging like desperate foxes escaping the hunt) and soon made a good sized hole which provided a little shelter. Like lighting fires, digging holes is fun.

A top microadventuring/survial tip to light a fire is to use an old egg carton filled with cotton wool. If the firewood is particularly damp you may want to coat the cotton wool in vaseline, but in this was super dry wood which caught easily: my swedish army issue flint making sure there was a raging fire in seconds. If anything, the wood was too dry and burnt pretty quickly. Collecting fuel involved a short trek across the dunes to the edge of the pine woods where there were branches in abundance. We managed to keep the fire going all night, which warded off anything wild or evil or both.

It’s easy to clear evidence of the fire away in the sand. At the next spring high tide, no trace of our visit will remain.

At 12.30am when all the alcohol was consumed and with the horrific realisation that we might have to go through the night with a semblance of sobriety, it was decided to go down to the shore line and paddle in the shallows. Holkham beach is massive, even with the tide coming in it was still maybe a quarter of a mile to the shoreline, walking over a razor clam graveyard. The water (and the air) were amazingly warm so what started as shoes and socks off quickly escalated into full on clothes-off swimming.

This was the first time I’ve ever seen, or been aware of, phosphorescence in the water. Churning in the water below the surface stimulated luminescence of algae and plankton resulting in what looks like fireflies darting about. I don’t bandy about the word ‘magical’ that often. This was pretty special. No photos exist of this, or the nudity.

Having splashed about in the sea and swimming out probably too far to be safe for 20 mins (Methods does not usually promote such reckless disregard for human life), it was fortunate that it was still very warm (down to the mounting cloud cover).

Looking back up the beach any worry that our raging fire beacon was making us obtrusive was put to rest. We could barely see the fire and actually struggled to find our campsite. It was pretty straightforward to get dry around the fire, and then it was time to build the fire up and settle in for the night as the first drops of rain started to fall. I can’t say that I got the best night sleep, but it was possible to get pretty comfortable. Making a pillow out of sand wasn’t a great idea. I’m still washing it out of my hair now.

The rain didn’t really stop after dawn, so eventually we decided to pack up and head back to the car. A few dog walkers looked a little disapproving, startled, confused, about our presence.

We then headed home from our #microadventure to have a #massivesleep.

Discover more of the country with our UK travel guides, including this lusty adventure at the Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield.

Summary Title: Nightswimming in Holkham: a beach microadventure Description: The story of a microadventure to Holkham Sands in Norfolk, featuring nightswimming, beach sleeping and fire building. Author: Joachim Farncombe Brought to you by: Methods Unsound Logo: