From Halvergate the route strikes east, following the minor road out of the village and taking the track at the sharp bend in the road. This is now marsh country, intersected with hundreds of ditches and sparsely populated. The rich pastures between the Rivers Yare and Waveney were once famous for their cattle. Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, visited the district in the 1720s and reported that the preferred Scottish-bred cattle were doing well. ‘These Scots runts, so they call them,’ he wrote, ‘coming out of the cold and barren mountains of the Highlands in Scotland, feed so eagerly on the rich pasture in these marshes, that they thrive in an unusual manner, and grow monstrously fat.’
It has to be said that there is a desolate atmosphere about these parts, especially in the winter when the winds blow from east and north. The Weavers’ Way now becomes footpath again. Take the footpath which leads southeast. Just before the first windmill pump you come to, turn right over the bridge. The signage here is not always good but if you keep a sharp look out for the tall poles that mark the route every so often and maintain a course towards the distinctive Berney Arms Mill you shouldn’t go far wrong. Cross the railway line at Berney Arms Station and continue to Berney Arms Mill. The eponymous pub is nearby.

Turn left along the River Yare. A few hundred yards downstream, the Yare and the Waveney, which together form the border with Suffolk for much of its length, meet in Breydon Water, which is
effectively their estuary, though a landlocked one. The path runs along the north side of Breydon Water. Great Yarmouth is visible in the distance, looking not so much like a popular English coastal resort as part of some sprawling industrial American town. To the southwest is Burgh Castle, nowadays a Mecca for campers and caravanners, but once the proud Roman fort of Gariannonum; an area of six acres surrounded by an impregnable wall 15–20ft (4.5-6m) high and 9ft (2.75m) thick, built in the 3rd century AD to keep out the Saxon raiders. Much of it still exists.

After the departure of the Romans there was a monastery here, founded in about AD635 by St Fursa, the Irish missionary, but this too fell foul of the changing circumstances of history and was destroyed after only 250 years, probably by Danish invaders towards the end of the 9th century. Indeed, this whole area was settled by the Danes.

The Weavers’ Way continues along the lonely north shore of Breydon Water. Much of it is a nature reserve and a haven for birds.

Eventually it meets the A47 before passing under the A12 and making its way into Great Yarmouth past the railway station.The walk zigzags into town, its signage small and far from conspicuous, eventually making its way to the promenade along an arrow-straight pedestrianised thoroughfare called Regent Road. On reaching the promenade, turn right. The Weavers’ Way ends, without fanfare, opposite the closed down Empire cinema.

To the north is the resort of Caister-on-Sea. Though now mainly a holiday suburb of Yarmouth, Caister has two glorious links with the past. As its name suggests, it was originally a Roman settlement,
probably begun in the 1st century AD and then developed over the years. It may have become a Roman town for retired seamen. English Heritage now looks after the Roman remains. The Saxons made use of the massive defences in later centuries. Many ‘boat burials’ have been discovered outside the walls and a number of Saxon huts inside. 

Caister’s other fascinating site is the 15th-century castle. The Weavers’ Way’s final destination, Great Yarmouth, suffers from its modern reputation as the Blackpool of the east coast, and it is true that much of the modern development in pursuit of the holiday trade has done the town no favours.
However, Yarmouth has a long and proud history, and for many centuries was an extremely important port, trading in everything from cloth to coal, but above all in herrings.

At the start of the 20th century, the herring industry was at its peak, and fisher-girls from Scotland would flock to the town in the autumn to clean and gut the herrings at the rate of a cran (1,200–1,500 fish) an hour. Yet as early as the 18th century, Yarmouth was a fashionable resort, and the Victorians capitalised upon this. Now, in the 21st century, it is the holidaymaker, not the herring, that provides the town’s prosperity.