Everything we know about Boadicea is wrong. Those knives coming out of the side of her chariot wheels? A romantic fiction. That she lies buried under platform 10 of King's Cross station? An urban myth. Worse still, it turns out she's not even called Boadicea - that was a mistranscription by some careless mediaeval scribe.

"However, you can be pretty sure that Boudica walked right where we're standing now."

When curator John Davies made this outlandish assertion, I happened to be in the Boudica Gallery of Norwich Castle Museum standing by a horde of exquisite golden jewellery from Boudica's time, and a recreation of a Boudica-style chariot (you can take it for a virtual ride through Norfolk). This made his claim seem just a little too much like wishful thinking.

"Well," he began patiently, "we're in Norwich Castle, which is built on the site of a fort held by the Iceni. Boudica, as leader of the Iceni, would have visited all her forts from time to time. Thus, you can be pretty sure she's been here before us."

Nearly 2,000 years before us, in fact, more than enough time for her trail to have gone cold. Or so you might think. However, thanks to the writings left us by Roman historian Tacitus (and a bit of work from South Norfolk Council), for the next three days, I would be walking Boudica's Way. In doing so, I would trace the first 40 miles marched by the warrior queen's army at the beginning of the greatest rebellion ever staged by Britons against Roman rule. My southward route to Diss, on the Suffolk border, would roughly follow the Pye Road which, in AD60, was a newly constructed super highway - evidence, in their defence, that the Romans did indeed do something for us.

The road must have been one of the easier ones they had to construct because it would be an exaggeration to speak of the rolling hills of south Norfolk. Once out of Norwich, I encountered only the occasional slope. I trekked past the site of a woodhenge (think Stonehenge only wooden) before gentle farmland brought me to Caistor, otherwise known as Venta Icenorum - The Market of the Iceni.

We have Wing Commander Insall to thank for the discovery of Caistor. Flying above the area in 1928, he noticed that markings in the wheat fields below appeared to show a pattern of streets alongside the River Tas. When his photographs were studied, a whole town was revealed - walls, temples, a forum, an amphitheatre, a bath house, even pottery kilns.

Archaeologist Will Bowden took me for a tour around the walls. "People living here would certainly have joined Boudica's army as it passed by," he said, his arm sweeping out to point down the main street. In its glory days, the settlement had a population of around 10,000 and even possessed its own mint (an astonishing 4,500 Iceni and Roman coins have been found here). "It was something of a Wild West town though - lots of fancy facades on the buildings but go inside and it would be wattle and daub."

There was also a lead curse tablet found in the river here - John had shown it to us at the museum. Some unfortunate wretch had had a quantity of clothing stolen. To avenge himself he got out his stylus, inscribed a curse, and deposited it in the river so that the god of water might take action against the thief. My favourite line was, "Neptune, if you would like them, you can keep the pair of leggings."

A magnificent ghostly barn owl swooped around the trees, a reminder that dusk was drawing on and that I should make my way to Stoke Holy Cross and the cosy lodgings at the 17th-century Salamanca Farm – a two-minute walk from the Wildebeest Arms. It's unlikely that Boudica ever sampled potato and celeriac rosti on a bed of buttered spinach or even citrus rice pudding with a rhubarb sorbet but then the highly prized Michelin Bib Gourmand, of which the Wildebeest is a proud holder, has only been awarded since 1997. If only country pub food were always this exquisite.

In picturesque Pulham Market - a rare village on a walk so assiduously rural that the sight of two or three houses gathered together is a rarity to be commented upon - the path runs right by the door of The Old Bakery, a sumptuous Tudor breadmaker's-turned-B&B. Here I pulled off my muddy boots and took ease by a log fire at the end of the second day. I had explored a ruined church hidden in a coppice, surprised a weasel and a flock of lapwings, crossed numberless rustic bridges over rivers and streams, strolled down ancient sunken tracks, and visited a hill fort already deserted and silent when Boudica had swept past it.

At Diss the trail ended, as it had conveniently begun, at a railway station. Some 1,947 years before us, Boudica and her army had stormed on further south, sacking and burning the then capital Camulodunum (Colchester). She then did much the same for Londinium (London) and Verulamium (St Albans) before finally crashing to defeat at the hands of the Roman general Suetonius somewhere in the Midlands (no one is quite sure where). Rather than fall into enemy hands she took poison and was buried along with her knife-studded chariot under platform 10 of King's Cross station.

Er, no, hang on a minute …

Further information

Boudica's Way Walking guide £3.50 from Diss and Norwich TICs; +44 (0)1379 650523 & +44 (0)1603 213999. Click here for a downloadable leaflet.

National Express trains go from London to Norwich or Diss from £6 single; +44 (0)845 600 7245.

Salamanca Farm: Doubles from £52; +44 (0)1508 492322

The Old Bakery: Doubles from £65; +44 (0)1379 676492

The Wildebeest Arms: Three-course menu du jour £18.50; +44 (0)1508 492497

Norwich Castle Museum: Open daily; adult £5.80, child £4.25; +44 (0)1603 493625

Venta Icenorum: Open daily; free; mobile tour download £1.50; +44 (0)20 7112 1928