Norfolk in November

I had a day to myself whilst visiting my parents so I went for a walk along the sea front from Sea Palling to Happisburgh and neighbouring Bacton were a third of Britain's North Sea gas supplies arrive in the country. Out to sea at Sea Palling there are nine great reefs built of Norwegian granite to help to protect the beach and low lying areas from erosion. 

The granite blocks were carried by barge from Norway and either placed in offshore reefs or on the beach as protection from the waves. Its called blue granite and in the right light it really does appear to be blue.

The idea is to let the sea replenish the sand that drifts along the coast caused by the predominant currents down the coast. The effect is to raise the beach level and the sand builds up behind the reefs with long fingers of sand stretching out from the coast to connect the reefs to the shore  at low tide.

So successful has the experiment been that the beach level has risen and the dunes behind have increased to smother some of the hard concrete sea defences that had also been built after the disastrous 1953 sea flooding that drowned over 100 people in Norfolk alone. The nine reefs were built in 1995 by the Environment Agency to protect erosion of the beach and the danger of under cutting the concrete sea wall.

 A purpose built gap in the sea wall and dunes.

 A second world war pill box that was incorporated into the sea defences.

 As luck would have it I also witnessed an inshore rescue life boat drill.

This is were the concrete sea wall finishes and the land rises to have cliffs facing the sea. The sea wall is to the left, the cliffs to the right and the central part of the photo shows the area between the two, and that indicates about 75m retreat of the cliffs over the 75 years since the concrete sea defences were built.

 A pill box that used to be on the cliff top whose foundations have long since been eroded and it has now plunged into the sea.

 The light house at Happisburgh (pronounced as Hayesburgh just to confuse non locals).

 Looking along the sea wall.

 Another view along the sea wall with protections along its base and one of the reefs out to sea in the distance.

Vochos!

Vocho (or bocho as I wrote it in my blog until I discovered the correct spelling...Spanish spelling and pronunciation 'v' is very similar to 'b') is the local vernacular term for what we in Europe know as the VW Beetle and it is endemic to Mexico.

The VW beetle was introduced to Mexico in March 1954 and local production was started in 1961 using parts assemble locally but produced in Europe. A local factory started turning out cars in 1962. A purpose built factory opened in October 1967 and produced beetles until it closed in 2003 which was the last plant in the world producing these iconic cars.

The car is mechanically robust, used simple engineering and is easy to work upon by anyone with a screw driver and spanner. Hence its attraction to the local market and it sold in huge numbers. There were lots of variations and home made adaptions so it was an ideal vehicle for the rough roads and lack of repair facilities at the time.

They can be seen throughout Mexico and Central America in large numbers and it became a challenge to take as many photos as possible of the cars as I travelled through the area. My quest for photos of different vochos rubbed off on the rest of the group and soon people would shout out when they saw a vocho. Which colour did I not get a photo of?

For the blog I have also added some other vehicles using the excuse of a road transport theme to justify their inclusion. Hence the first three pictures are of buses in Tequila including a chilli bus and a barrel bus plus a few other forms of road transport.

The first vocho...maroon.

An ox cart passing the petrol station where the above white vocho was parked...plus a tuk tuk.

A tuk tuk blockade on the main road in protest at new government (tougher) regulations on tuk tuks.

A dog trying to attack a vocho seen whilst I was riding a horse near San Cristóbal de las Casas.

A tuk tuk near Bonampak.

A blurred picture but the colour combination was too good and unique to miss!

I chased this vocho through the main square in Merida trying to get a good side view and didn't succeed.

A red vocho parked in front of Betsy, my transport for the journey from Anchorage in Alaska to Panama.

 A vocho on the Mexican Belize border.

Some vochos in Flores and Antigua in Guatamala, plus a chicken bus and a tuk tuk that I shared with Seb who had bought two heavy truck batteries for Betsy and Steve which together with the driver struggled to get up the hill back to the hotel as tuk tuks typically only small two stoke engines.

Then on to El Salvador and a picture of a 4X4 as well as a vocho in Nicaragua.

Lake Nicaragua with a vocho and a couple of chicken buses on Ometepe Island.

 Plus a trail bike but not of me but with which I had a lot fun riding across the island to a spring for a swim.

 Its not a vocho but this was a plane themed restaurant in which we had a lot of fun posing for photos.

By the time I got to Panama, there were no more vochos and the chicken buses weren't so colourful either.

But there were still plenty of sightings of vochos by others on the trip. Here is a small selection of some that I didn't photograph and I am indebted to Zoë for sharing them with me.