What does it mean to be spiritual? Interpretations are highly individual, as hard to pin down as sunlight and the ripples on the river, clear as day, obscure as night. This journey has its roots in the centuries-old devotional pilgrimages, when people set out on sacred travels far from the comforts of home in search of spiritual enlightenment.

The Nar Valley Path leaves King’s Lynn taking you through what’s now a rich agricultural tapestry, but once was a watery landscape of reed and marsh, home of ‘fowle’ and geese, fish and eel. English writer Augustus Jessopp called the Nar Valley Norfolk’s ‘Holy Land’, due to the high concentration of priories and friaries that once populated this wild and remote corner of Britain. The solitude of Norfolk’s windswept horizons appealed to ‘peregrina’, as pilgrims were known, the word ‘pilgrimage’ coming from the original Latin. Like the world’s fastest bird, the ‘peregrine’ falcon, which spends much of its life wandering before returning to breed at its ancestral home.

The physical remains of least six different religious orders can be found in the villages overlooking this picturesque valley. King’s Lynn itself was patronised by four major monasteries, including the Carmelites who slept in their own coffins, ever ready to meet their maker. The remains of four motte and bailey castles still guard the river, strategic sentinels, indicating the ancient importance of the Nar valley.

Even today this restless landscape is a place to lose yourself. Or perhaps to find yourself?