Our Break On Golden Emblem

[Jocave]

Day one 

Day one was spent travelling across the country from North Wales to Norwich, we had booked a night at the Mecure Norwich, myself and the wife had booked Golden Emblem and my father and inlaws had booked Heron cottage , we decided to travel down the day before to avoid rushing around getting ready and the early start needed to get across country to Norfolk, the Mecure has to be one of the worst hotels I have ever stayed at, from checking in to checking out it was one disaster after the next, Crossroads motel springs to mind for those who remembers that, should have listened to the advice given by the good people on here and booked elsewhere..

[Jocave]

Day two

After a quick fill up on the OK ish breakfast at the Mecure we headed off in convoy to Wroxham to show the in laws around as it was one place they had never visited before, the look on their faces when they stopped off at Roy's for fuel then Roy's for supplies and spotted Roy's toys and all the other Roy's named shops ... Payed a visit to the hotel Wroxham for a coffee and to watch the boats go under the bridge and feed the ducks, its 11.30 and I'm getting itchy feet to get on the boat so decide to head to ferry marina and just let them know we are in the area and can they give me a ring when the boat will be ready, to my surprise they said the boat is ready now, load all your stuff on and give us a shout and we will send someone over to run you through everything , the cottage wouldn't be ready until three so the in laws went for a walk around Horning while we got ourselves unpacked, pleasantly surprised by high standard of the details on the boat, nice toiletries in both heads, plenty of toilet rolls, tea towels ,cloths, everything that we had brought with us was already provided, everything was spotlessly clean and fresh smelling unlike our last boat from NBD that smelt of wet dog the whole week no matter how much we cleaned up, the handover was very thorough and no trial was needed so we headed off to mud weight on Black horse broad to unpack and organise ourselves and open a bottle of red to celebrate the start of our holidays..

[Jocave]

Day one part two

After sorting ourselves out we had a quick scoot up to Wroxham and a nosey around Wroxham broad on the way back to Ferry to help the oldies get settled in the cottage, its called Heron Cottage but its more like an apartment over looking the marina, certainly had the wow factor when we walked in, everything ultra modern with every gadget and appliance you could imagine and again everything clean and tidy, by the time we had sorted everything out there was not much time for anymore cruising so it was a visit to the Ferry inn for some food a few more wines then back to the boat for a couple of hours altogether on the sun deck for another wine or two enjoying the fantastic weather and the stillness of the river after all the boats have moored up for the evening, it really was flat calm only the odd duck squabble to spoil the peace and quiet..

[SwanR]

Really enjoyed reading the start to your tale. We hired Silver Emblem a few years ago ... similar but just for two people.

Looking forward to hearing how the rest of your trip worked out.

[Jocave]

Day two

Early start as I'm always up early and eager to get going, we had arranged to pick up the oldies at nine so decided to motor down to Ranworth to mud weight on the broad and have breakfast and get ourselves showered and ready for the day ahead , it took longer than I thought to get back to Horning so the oldies had were starting to think we had left without them, due to the poor mobile signal around there we had no way of letting them know we were running a bit late, when we did finally arrive back they were still there , my father will talk to anyone so was quite happy telling anyone that would listen what he had planned for the week, back on the move we headed for St Bennets ,plenty of space at the moorings so spent a couple of hours looking around before heading back to Ranworth for a light lunch, there was no room at the staithe so dropped the mud weight over near the island so the mother in law could make us a salad with quiche and olives, no sooner as I had finished this we spotted a couple of boats leaving the staithe, a quick heave ho of the mud weight and we managed to slot in between a rickos bathtub and a rather posh Broom boat with no fenders that all the crew onboard jumped up when I headed rather fast in reverse towards them, no need to worry though I am pretty competant in reversing and pride myself in not using other boats as fenders and can take my time when needed and can fit into pretty tight spaces without touching anything else, we took a walk, push the wheelchair up to the church, I was deterimind to climb the tower after watching Robin's blogs and never having done it before, well being not a great fan of heights and confined spaces it was rather a quick up and down visit, the climb up is horrible the view is fantastic the climb down is horrible, not something I would do again but still glad I did it, back to the Malsters for lunch and as always great food and service,one of my favorite places

[Jocave]

Day two part two

After leaving the Masters we headed off to Womak staithe ,on arriving we were lucky enough to slot in to the last remaining space, again a stern on without touching anything, perfect for us as the wife can only get off on stern on moorings, a lovely walk/push up to the Kings arms for my first taste of wherry, oh wow yummy, after a few more my father discovered a pool table inside, now I've not played pool for years but it was great spending a couple of hours playing pool with the old man , we don't do a lot together these days so it was good fun and a great laugh, sadly it had to end as I had to get them back to the cottage and find a mooring close by before sunset

[Jocave]

Day three

Day three was the day we had planned that the oldies would spend the night on the boat ,the plan was the white horse neatishead, we headed up the ant myself still unsure that we would fit under Ludham bridge after running a bit later than we had planned for the night before, we arrived at the first marker post and it was reading somewhere between 8'3 and 8'6 its a bit difficult to see as the mud has left a mark somewhere in between the actual height, maybe it was my dodgy eyesight but I was still a bit nervous, my plan was to get everyone to stay downstairs and I would stay up top as I always prefer to be unless it is chucking it down , I thought I would stop before the two bends before the bridge pop down stairs and helm from there whilst the father in law stood on the steps at the rear to check on clearance,some people will shoot me down for this saying it was the wrong thing to do but it was pretty confident it would be OK, the river was empty ,there was no wind so I stopped mid river popped downstairs and pulled the switch to swap from upper to lower helm, it didn't move so popped back upstairs to double check it was definatly in neutral, after doing this twice more I realised the switch worked the opposite way to what it was marked up, no harm done and I now realised my mistake, I wouldn't have tried this anywhere else but at the time and where I was I thought it was a safe thing to do, a big yes shout from the father in law and we edged through with five inches or so spare..

[Jocave]

Day three part two

A most enjoyable trip up the Ant we arrived at Neatished staithe it looked full but I spotted a space right at the far end, unsure if it was big enough for us I thought we would give it a try, spun it around and backed the full length of the staithe and into the end mooring with a couple of feet to spare, managed it without touching anything and with lots of people watching, tied it up to a big round of applause and lots of praise for doing such a great job, felt a bit big headed for a while, mainly relived though as I felt under huge pressure with all those eyes watching me , the end was my preferred choice as its easier for the wife to get off being stern on , went for a wander up to the village and to see if we could book a table in the pub , it worked out well booked a table for seven which gave us and hour or so to shower and get ready, fantastic food and great service, big thumbs up to the staff there they really are first class, back to the boat with a rather full stomach and a wine or two up top before the midges drove me up the wall and we had to go inside to escape the constant bitting , strange thing was it was only me and the mother in law that was bitten everyone else escaped it, I'm sitting at home now still covered in red lumps.. 

[Jocave]

Day four

Played a visit to Stalham, moored up at rickos and the women payed a visit to Tescos to buy stuff for a bbq , the plan was to find a wild mooring for an hour or so and fire up the three disposable bbqs we had, found a mooring that was pretty straight and allowed us to get the boat close to the bank and lift the wife off, really enjoyed this stop, one of my favorites, after filling on various burnt meat products and a wine or six it was decided to just go with the flow and cruise around for a while, we ended up in Acle eventually and after finding all the moorings outside the Bridge inn taken edged in to what I now now is the broads boating co, proper friendly bunch of guys ,even though they had a number of boats arriving back they allowed us to stay for an hour while the wife and mother in law visited the Bridge inn for woman things, the guys offered to moor us up, helped the wife off the boat ,spent time explaining what was going on ,showed us a boat that was being painted and generally made us feel welcome , I wish these guys all the best for the future as I understand it's a new business, I may be wrong as its my first visit for three years and so much has changed since then...

[YnysMon]

Enjoying reading your account of your week so far. Well done at Neatishead. In a similar situation we completely chickened out!  Looking forward to the rest of your tale.

Helen

[Broads01]

Thanks for writing your tale. I love a good reverse at Neatishead (seriously!). Good to read about the welcome you had at Broads Boating Company. It contrasts markedly with the experiences I've had with all the Wroxham boatyards at various times.