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The Prodigal Returns - Part 2.


Vaughan

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Susie and I had such a good time in May, that we came back for more! This time on Swan Romance. A delightful boat for 4 people in luxury.

 

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Here is a good tip for those catching ferries in Portsmouth and wanting to stay overnight. Rooms are the same price as the good old Travelodge at the ferry port but the value is something else! A marble hall with domed skylight, very nice bar and restaurant, with our room on the third floor having a great view across Spithead to the Isle of Wight. We spent two nights here, so as to visit the Historic Dockyard and do some shopping for a suit, appropriate for a wedding, as my old one seems to have shrunk!

 

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The old and the new, at Portsmouth Dockyard.

We didn't take over the boat until Sunday morning, as the Saturday was my brother-in-law, Bill Knight's wedding. A big "do", held on Ormesby Broad and attended by many old friends we had not seen for years. Among the quests were four wherry skippers (if I include myself) and we had a lovely chat. Also Matthew Thwaites who arrived in the evening and was so pleased to see Susie that he picked her up off her feet and carried her into the bar! Not sure I could still do that, these days. . . .

One way or another, we took over the boat a bit slowly on the Sunday morning!  We had a clear run down the Ant but there was a steady stream of boats coming upriver, presumably to hand over their boats on the Monday morning. There were NO moorings left at How Hill, Ludham Bridge or St Benets but we had a table for 2 booked at Acle bridge, so hoped to be able to get in there. We arrived about 1800 and after going through the bridge and back we found just one space, on the river bank upstream of the ex Horizon Craft. A gentleman on the boat in front was kind enough to come and take a bow line for a difficult mooring on the weather bank in a gale force wind. A few moments after we moored, the heavens opened and it became a savage night, to moor in such an exposed place as Acle Bridge.

This was not helped by the arrival, between rainstorms, of a man from Pedro's restaurant demanding a mooring fee of £5. Apparently this was redeemable when you went to eat in Pedro's. So what about all those who have never had to pay to moor there before, and had tables booked in the Bridge Inn, which has been there for hundreds of years? Personally I resent this and have no wish to moor in Acle just to eat Chilli Con Carne in a corrugated iron boatshed. I shall not be making plans to moor in Acle in future. I wonder what the proprietors of the Bridge Inn think of this situation?

Next morning we set off to catch the tide through Yarmouth and meet Wussername and 'is missiz in Reedham, from which point the trip took on a rather more jovial atmosphere!

More of that tomorrow but for those of you who feel it is a bit "naff" to have bunches of flowers on boats, I leave you with this!

 

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It’s the Broads Boating Company that are charging..... that’s the logo on the t-shirts but the refund is at Pedro’s. (Same Company I know)

We were there last week and noticed that they were on top you before you could even get tied up, even for an hour.

They were even charging Bridgecraft boats wanting to spend their last night there instead of stern in in the yard.

( got away with it earlier in the week when we visited Bridgecraft to have a look around our next boat. It was their changeover day so must have been busy)

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So, there we were on Monday morning and I got inveigled into leaving Acle too early, by all the other boats casting off and heading south. I soon began to realise though, and went steadily slower and slower on the way to Yarmouth until I caught dead slack water at the yacht station. The tide turns on Breydon an hour before the Bure and so, with a good flood under me I was able to cross at half speed and not take all the waves over the front from the strong south-west wind. This still got me to Reedham at the time that we had arranged to meet Andrew and Anne. This was the only slightly poor piece of planning as at that time, the pubs were still shut!

 

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This time we thought we would have a look down the Chet, as I honestly can't remember if I have ever been down it. A lovely little river, surrounded by what I call "real" Broads countryside, as I remember the Waveney and the lower Bure used to be, before they built all the flood banks.

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Behind this sluice is a big "washland" called Hardley Flood, which accepts the top of the tide and especially the surge tides from the North Sea. Andrew tells me that at low tide it becomes a mud flat. All of the other meadows around have low river banks and would also accept the surge tides, in the way they have always done ever since the land was first reclaimed by the Dutch. Since they started all the deep dyke digging in the 80's most of the washlands have been cut off by the high banks, so we now have to have flood protection in places like Reedham, St Olaves and Stokesby, which didn't need it before.

This is very different country from the northern Broads, where you have the evolution of reed bed, fen, carr and then dry land. Down here, the grazing meadows are just as they have always been, with no change, and I find this scenery very beautiful.

 

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I thought they didn't allow these new Brooms down the Chet?? Oh well, never mind. Just ahead of it you can see the cruiser that had sunk a few days before. We were talking later to one of the residents on Thorpe Island and he had heard that the new owner had only bought it the day before it sank. He bought it on the Saturday, and it sank on the Sunday.

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Hardley Mill, with Cantley behind. Cantley always seems to be just around every bend you come across, on this part of the river!

 

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And so to Surlingham, for a peaceful night. There were only two other visiting boats that night, while the northern rivers were full to bursting. This has always been a mystery to me, and I suppose it always will. The pub was doing a roaring trade from the road, however, and we enjoyed an excellent supper.

I had better stop here, as I don't know how many photos I can post in one go!

 

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This is about halfway between the Woods End and Surlingham Ferry, on the south bank of the Yare. In the early 60's my parents were going to buy this house, to get ready for their retirement. It would have been 20 minutes from Thorpe in a fast launch. No speed limits then! In those days there was just the small thatched cottage at the left hand end and the boathouse was an older timber and thatched building which was nearer the river and was a "wet" boathouse. It was up for sale at the time for £6000.

We had a week of rough, indeed Wagnerian weather and so I didn't get many photos, but the Broads is famous for its open skies :

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I reckon David Dane would have wanted to paint that one!

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And so on to Thorpe on Tuesday morning after visiting Andy at Freedom for a pumpout and a mardle.

This is a very special place for Andrew and Anne as well as for Susie and I as we have our roots in the town as well as the local boatyard businesses. We had a good cruise up the reach and moored on the green for lunch, where we had an interesting chat with someone who lives on one of the island boats, and seems to be a good "source" as he attends all the Town Council meetings as a member of the public.

According to him, there will not be much work on the green for a bit, as the Council can't put their hands on any deeds and so they can't prove that they own it!

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This, in the meantime, is the much vaunted World War One Memorial Arboretum, in whose creation several mature trees were cut down. It seems this mound of earth is now all you are going to get for your money : the finishing touch, we were told, will be to plant plastic poppies on it. Take a last look also, at the standards with hanging baskets all along the side of the pavement which were first erected for the Festival of Britain in 1951. These are now being taken down to be replaced by some form of lamp standard. And yet they say they don't have the budget to maintain the moorings?

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If you have been given the impression by the EDP that the River Green moorings are bunged up with dinghies from those who live on the island, then my my photos do not show it! There were two other passing craft who moored that afternoon and I would say there is plenty of room for all to live in harmony.

 

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And now for some GOOD news! The Rushcutters (ex Thorpe Gardens) has gone back to being "boat friendly"!

They have a new management; they have done up the quay heading and there is no charge for overnight mooring if you are patrons of the pub. We were made most welcome for a drink at the bar in the afternoon (now a real bar again) and a very good meal in the evening. I have spoken against this place in the past but I am now delighted to recommend it again. Well worth a visit if you are passing through Thorpe. You may remember that there were bad storms in Norfolk on that Tuesday night but we were comfortable in the lee of the island and passed a very peaceful night. Possibly helped along by the very smooth Spanish Brandy that Wussername had brought with him!

 

Readers of the EDP may remember, a couple of years ago, a big publicity article with BA photo opportunities in leather hats, on the occasion of the opening of a new "canoe launching point" in the middle of nowhere on Carey's meadow, so as to open up the resource of our waterways to a wider public.

So here it is now, folks. . . . . .

 

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I seem to remember that a figure of around £30,000 of toll-payers' money was spent on this.

Oh well -  another day - another "Vision" for the future of the Broads National Park!

 

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Hmm we have cruised up to Norwich a few times but haver not yet ventured under Thorpe rail bridges, it seems we are missing out!

Is the 6ft average high water clearance on the BA site accurate? I think Safari 25's are around 6'6 but I have to confess to not having checked ours properly yet :default_dunce: 

 

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There is a fair amount of rise and fall of the tide so its not too difficult either side of high water. But be very careful not to go under on a rising tide and get stuck on the other side! We saw a brand new Richardson's boat do just that a few years back and they crunched it under the bridge trying to get out again.

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Just now, Jonzo said:

From memory, the bridge at the flyover end seemed to have more clearance than the one at the city end - But that may just be an optical illusion.

Yes definitely - when I complete my Holiday tale...........following in Vaughan and Susie's 'footsteps' all but a week later I shall mention that.  There was less that 6ft on the Norwich end bridge on Monday last week!

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10 hours ago, Jonzo said:

From memory, the bridge at the flyover end seemed to have more clearance than the one at the city end - But that may just be an optical illusion.

The bridge at the Norwich end is an inch and a half lower than the other end, which can catch you out!

To be honest, I know little about bridge heights or the normal "airdraft" of a Broads boat, as I come from the days before the bridges had depth gauges. We used the mark one eyeball instead and I still do. A much truer method!

On Swan Romance it says 6' 10" clearance which, judging by what others are saying here, seems higher than the boat looks. However if the depth gauge on Wayford bridge is correct, that would be about right, as we cleared it by one inch with my daughter standing in the aft well to look along the cabin top.

As to buildings on the island, there is nothing left at the Jenners end but opposite the River Garden pub is the boatshed of the Yare Boat Club. At the western end, those buildings were Hearts Cruisers sheds, originally built before the first war and largely re-built in 1946 after bomb damage in the second war. I don't think Roger uses them for much any more but I notice that he has re-painted the frontage, which is a big improvement! Behind the old office building which is now Roger's house there are one or two post - war Arcon buildings which were bought secondhand from the Plumstead Rd when they built the Heartsease Estate. These were used as engineer's shop and various stores.

The land opposite the Rushcutters used to be Hazells boatyard and there was also a shed and slipway, which may still be there.

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So, it is now Wednesday morning and a cooked breakfast was much enjoyed. This time, the tide was low on Surlingham Broad and there were all the Wherries -

 

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Rather ghostly and hardly anything left now. The effect of "where the wind meets the water" I am afraid. The one on the far right appeared to have a steel tabernacle, so maybe she had been converted as a dredger by Hoboroughs, in her final days.

We also went on Rockland Broad but it was rather bleak in the bad weather, and so on to the Beauchamp Arms for lunch.

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Here we were told by a man on a boat that the pub wasn't opening until the evening, so a sandwich and liquid lunch in the cosy warmth of our saloon. Actually, it didn't look very "open" at all to me. A pity, as I have fond memories of this pub, going back many years.

In the afternoon we dropped Andrew and Anne back at their car in Reedham, after a little sit down on his wall (see elsewhere)! We spent the night there and were joined by (newlywed) family for supper in the Ferry. This has always been a very good pub but I have to say we found their menu these days to be a bit too sophisticated for a pub. More of a choice of plain cooking would have been much appreciated.

Next day, back through Yarmouth and I tried to time it so that I arrived at the junction just before slack water on Breydon (the time of low water in GYYS) so I could drive at low revs, with the tide and the strong west wind behind me. after the Breydon bridge I turned into the last of the ebb and moored on the floating pontoon put there by the BA for those who wish to "wait for the tide under the bridges in the yacht station" with a maximum stay of 3 hours. We waited there for one and three quarter hours, watching about 40 other boats ploughing past both ways, all of whom had timed it badly wrong, and all of whom were peering curiously at us as though we had broken down, or something.

When we went through the yacht station we were about 40 minutes after slack water and were able to cruise gently with the tide up to Stracey Arms. A stop for a sandwich lunch there gave time for the flood tide to build up, and gave us an easy run right up to Ant Mouth. I mention all this because when we gave the boat back, we had used 56 litres of diesel as against 83 litres for our boat in May. On the first occasion I was obliged to punch a bit of tide both ways on Breydon, at full speed, but the second time I got the tides right both ways. Quite a difference in consumption! 

By now it was getting into early evening and there was not a single mooring space available from St Benets all the way up the Ant. This didn't bother us as we were happy to drop our mud weight for the night in the lee of the trees on Barton Broad.

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That clinker built River Cruiser moored ahead of us, used to be in the hire fleet of G.Hart and sons in Thorpe, before the war.

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The weather that we had that week reminds me of something my father used to say. He reckoned that on a clear day, if you could see Beccles from Thurne church (which you can) then you knew that rain would be on the way very soon.

And if you couldn't see it, you knew it was raining!

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Good news about the Rushcutters. When we stayed overnight at the Oaklands Hotel in August I considered it for food but I was put off by some bad reviews online, so good to know it's worth visiting. 

Great tip re the pontoon at Great Yarmouth. A nicer spot than the Yacht Station I feel and it's free.  I'll try that next time I'm going from south to north. 

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I'm assuming this is it? Sorry it's a bit fuzzy, it was taken from a video still.

It is definitely better to wait for the tide up the Bure - going South to North I tend to compromise without stopping and just leave crossing until a bit later. You do hit the flood a little on Breydon but on balance it usually works out OK and with eager anticipation of a beer in the Bridge!

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