Wednesday 1 October 2008

A'Broad - day ten to the end....

Day Ten: Hickling to Barton Turf: a lot of today was spent waiting for the tide to fall far enough to get under the Potter Heigham bridge!!! Had to fill up with as much water as we could, and the pilot was planning to get extra manpower to weigh the boat down if needed... as it was we went through at full speed, heads ducked low and cleared it by about 2 inches... Moored up at a point about 30 minutes from the boatyard, to return in time the following day. (my only mooring manoeuvre! I actually did it, after all this time!)





Day Eleven: from Barton Turf to returning the boat at Stalham. I'm very glad we didn't do this at the weekend, given how busy the boatyard was.....



We had fun.... I think we managed to cover just about all the Broads - at least as far as we could given the size limitations of the boat - and maybe we pushed the envelope a bit there too! Glorious scenery, wonderful wildlife, and the weather wasn't bad, except that it chose to rain whenever we had to take the screen and canopy down to go through a low bridge!

a Googlemap  of our travels is here.

A'Broad - day seven to nine.....

Day Seven: Berney Arms to Potter Heigham, which involves going across Breydon Water again, through Yarmouth, and up the River Thurne. Potter Heigham has a Very Low Bridge, so we waited til the next day to go through.







Day Eight: Potter Heigham to Horsey Mill. The pilot has to take you through the bridge, which is quite a relief, given the low clearance.... Horsey Mill is National Trust - shore party went exploring!







Day Nine: Horsey to Hickling. A short trip, mostly within the nature reserve. An evening spent experimenting with cameras...





A'Broad - days four to six......

Day Four: My Birthday!: Stokesby through the tides of Great Yarmouth to Beccles. Very carefully planned, and rather hair-raising! You have to cross Breydon Water, which is large and sea-like.....following this, at breakfast, I got my present - telephoto lens!!!







Day Five: Beccles to Brundall. Slumming it amongst the big posh cruisers....







Day Six: upriver from Brundall to the middle of Norwich, (which, unlike Birmingham last year, doesn't seem to want folks to access it from the river - it likes riverside cafes, but you can't visit if you're on a boat!) and back down to the lonely windmill and pub at Berney Arms (one of those places you can't get to with a car)- which is a great place, with some terrific folks in charge!







Abroad on the Broads - day one to three.

I have been reminded by she-who-must-be-obeyed-occasionally that I haven't written anything about our summer holiday....so for those who haven't seen it yet, here we go.

The Family set sail from Stalham, to explore the Norfolk Broads for 10 days or so..... some of the pictures are composites, made up from photos taken by all three of us.

Day One: Stalham to How Hill/Turf Fen Drainage Mill - we picked the boat up in the afternoon, and after some quick instruction, made our way south of Barton Broad to the gorgeous mill at How Hill. The most wonderful sunset...






Day Two: How Hill to Coltishall via Horning and Wroxham - revisiting old haunts, the area around Coltishall, where I spent almost 3 years of my life. We had to get the pilot to take us through the bridge at Wroxham - thank goodness!!





Day Three: Coltishall to Stokesby - we'd hoped to moor up at Acle overnight to head down to Yarmouth (the navigation from North to South Broads requires careful planning to go with the slack of the tide) but the moorings were full, so we ended up further downstream. No problem, though we met some right idiots in the process...



Web Rage

So I’m sat in the car outside the chip shop, waiting for Mum to emerge with our supper, when I notice that, stretched between the wing mirror and the side of the window of my door, are two spiderwebs, one slung behind the other as if to catch prey if the first breaks. Ingenious, I think. A rather rotund spider is wandering about on the one nearest the car, checking for midgies; it finds one, and hastens back into the left side of the recess behind the mirror to have its own supper.

Halfway along the top, a pair of wee spindly legs pokes out, and a much smaller spider emerges, very hesitantly. It steps out onto the second web, exploring. Well, that explains the ‘double web’ I think.

Suddenly, from the right hand side of the mirror, another larger spider rushes out onto the web. Obviously, the small spider’s footsteps have set the web thrumming, alerting the other to the presence of Something For Tea. Small spider freezes at the sight of the bigger one, which advances slowly and menacingly. I begin to think there will be carnage…

Smallest spider makes a dash for the top of the mirror.

Bigger spider goes in pursuit, and it looks like it will soon catch up. I’m almost biting my nails, willing the small one to go faster. It reaches the top and with true spidery ingenuity, flings itself off over the back, abseiling rapidly down the finest of thread to dangle six inches below the mirror, out of sight of the bigger spider. Perplexed (I don’t think the bigger spider is particularly intelligent) the latter seems to shrug, and heads back to its own side of the mirror, vanishing into the gap behind the glass.

Small spider dangles in the wind for a while, a little like Indiana Jones on the broken rope bridge, before clambering back up to the wing mirror and cautiously tiptoeing past the others to its own lurking spot.

Mum wonders why I’m chuckling.