Moosey

Day 3, Sunday 28th September We start the day at our lovely mooring on South Walsham Broad. We open up half the boat again and have bacon butties overlooking the broad - its beautiful! We set off up the river Thurne to Potter. Cant believe how many sailing boats we encounter along the way, they are all really nice, wave at us and make it quite clear which way they are going, so no problems with them thankfully. We moor a little ways before Potter and have a nice wander into the village, its nice to get out and have a decent walk with all this sitting about. We take pictures of the famous bridge, even with an air draft of just 6' 10" we are not getting under there! Over the bridge and we are shocked to discover a massive store called Lathams and here was me wondering if I would find anywhere that sells air freshener for our horrible toilet! Ha I should not have worried this store is unbelievable and I swear must genuinely sell anything anyone could possibly want. We stock up on 2 air fresheners for the stinky toilet, a bottle of fruity sauce and some bread, I could have bought loads! I am particularly taken with some cheap garden furniture outside but hubbie just rolls his eyes at me! Ok so I guess we aren't buying that then! We set sail again and this time we are back on the Bure and heading for Yarmouth! I microwave some spuds and put them into the oven for lunch at a nice wild mooring. We find a nice wild-ish spot just before Acle Bridge (though not before we have taken a detour down a silly narrow dyke where we narrowly avoid crashing into a boat as we turn. Note to selves for future when it says narrow dyke may be difficult to turn its not fibbing)! So I dive out onto the grass to moor up as I have done every other time we moor, sunglasses on, I meant to remove them. I hit a tiny mooring post with my leg and take a very impressive tumble down the bank! Pride is well and truly dinted and bloody hell my leg hurts. Once hubbie knows i'm ok he finds it very funny and takes the mickey out of my slow motion dive. He does his best to look after me though, washes off my grazes and finds some savlon - I cry! He later re-enacts my fall, haha very funny! Meanwhile one of the potatoes has exploded in the oven but they are still tasty with cheese and tuna and are much appreciated. We leave our mooring but I don't think hubbie trusts me on that rough ground again so I steer us out while he unties. We head on straight through to Yarmouth. That is not an interesting drive and we don't see another soul for long distances at a time, we wonder what we are letting ourselves in for. Yuck, are we here? These moorings don't look very nice and everything looks closed, then we realise they are thankfully not in use. Past these we find the Yacht station, not sure why such a posh name, it looks like its just concrete moorings for hire boats in truth. We turn around before the bridge and head back. A very nice man helps us to moor up and is full of helpful information, he ties up our ropes so they will move with the tides and advises us of the best time to cross tomorrow, we pay our £12 and are all done. So off to Yarmouth we go. Now I have never been to Yarmouth before and I imagine a glamorous, old fashioned, sea side town full of beautiful buildings, so what we get is quite a shock to me! Its like Blackpool only some how worse, there are drunks and broken vodka bottles everywhere and its not even 4 in the afternoon yet. We do take a walk onto the beach and along the front. We do not fancy eating here and give the arcades a miss too! Instead of walking back down the sea front my bright idea is to go back to the dockside and walk back along there. This in turn takes us through several estates and as I am walking am so thankful for the life that I have. We decide on a takeaway back on the boat and opt for pizza, £17 secures us 2 pizzas, garlic bread, chips and a salad. Its ok but I wouldn't rush back in a hurry. If you are still awake after all my ramblings I will try and post some pics later.

Lovely tale! We were at Yarmouth same time as you, only I haven't got to writing that day up yet! Can't wait to hear some more

Day 2 Day 2 starts after a dreadful nights sleep in the tiny and very uncomfortable bed (I thought hubbie at 6'5" might be the one who had trouble sleeping but no), but at least morning is now here. Toilet is pretty disgusting this morning too, what did we do to deserve this, bathroom stinks! Hubbie takes a closer look at this stupid contraption and it turns out we might have been causing our own problems, lock isn't exactly where we thought it was and we have been leaving the handle unlocked, oppsie! Hopefully this will now solve the weird filling and the horrid smell. Hubbie makes us coffee and opens up half the roof, not ready to converse with anyone this morning yet. Coffee drank and im starting to feel a little more awake now! Croissants with butter and jam are soon devoured. Weirdly the water is still piping hot from yesterday so I decide to brave the shower, not too bad actually and I even remembered to hide the toilet roll in the cupboard! We exchange pleasantries with Norfolk Gem and leave our mooring just as another boat arrives and is very pleased to see we are leaving. We head further on up the ant and decide to moor for lunch at Dilham, blimey these broads are narrow and its my turn to give driving a go today! I take a few trees on but apart from that its pretty straight forward once you get used to the delayed reaction! On arrival there is a weird looking boat moored up and a hire boat, there is probably room for us to squeeze in the middle and the hire boat guy comes out to give us a hand but we decide against it and just turn around instead. Back over Barton Broad we go and a very nice mooring is found at Irstead (sorry if I am renaming places slightly) for lunch. Nachos and chilli and a nice little drink on the front of the boat in the sun and we are off again. Back on down the Ant and onto the Bure and another nice mooring is found at South Walsam. Neighbours not so nice this time cant even be bothered to say hello! We take the "20 minute walk" into the village, (yeah right make that 30) and check out the Ship Inn and the Kings Arms, we vote for the Ship Inn and book a table for 6pm. Not really sure about this place as its full of lads after football all shouting and swearing. We decide on a walk around the village and check out the church and the ruins of the old church then back for a drink and our dinner. We are sat in the restaurant with a large family party, Hubbie has scallops with pulled pork and a burger (yes I know, I thought the same) and I have mixed game terrine and lamb steak with fondant potato, kale and baby carrots, its all really tasty and we are pleased that it wasn't half as bad as we expected. We wander back to Rose glad that we brought torches as its really starting to get dark now. Back on board we settle down for x factor (please don't judge me). Time for bed and we are loving the fact that our neighbours are still running there engine at 10.15pm, please let me sleep a bit better tonight.

Thanks you guys, you are too kind! We couldn't have done it with out our heros on Norfolk Gem though. Will update some more soon!

Hi Grace, yes the broads bug has definitely bitten

Day 1 We set off from our overnight stop in Norwich after spending an hour trying to find a Tesco we end up in Waitrose! Bit of fresh food bought and we are off to collect our boat from Ferry Marina in Horning. We arrive at 12.30 and Rose is ready yay, we are shown round our boat and given a test drive. This probably could have been more thorough at it was just can you drive the boat straight and turn it round? When it came to mooring back up the guy took back over. So there it was we were ready to be let loose with a 35ft boat! We leave Horning direction of the river Ant, we are not sure how far we will get but decide to play it by ear and see if we can moor up near a pub for the night. We end up at Neatishead, we pass the first lot of moorings, these are Stern on, that's a definite no on our first day! Little did we realise how narrow the second lot of moorings would be. Hubbie manages to turn rose round but we decide its too narrow to moor and start to drive on by. There is a lovely coupe on Norfolk Gem 1 who shout to us "are you coming in"! "No, its a bit narrow for us" I say, "come on we'll give you a hand" and sure enough the gent was already on his way round to get our ropes! Wow people on the Broads really are friendly! We are soon moored up and are warned by the same couple that the pub is busy, so we wander on up to book a table. The White Horse is a lovely pub and we sample a pint and a half of cider and hubbie has half a pint of fresh pork scratchings which he reports were good. We book our table and wander back to the boat to unpack. Quite a few more boats arrive some are beginners like us who we help and others are expert and make it look easy! We have a table reserved in the bar area and the pub is heaving so much so that the next table end up jamming us in as we are trying to eat. The waitress notices this and check if we are ok which I thought was a nice touch. Hubbie had pigeon to start followed by pork belly and I went with pate and a home made fish finger sandwich. The food was good and excellent value for money too. The conversation on the next table had turned to c sections and kids potty training so we decided to have coffee and more drinks back on the boat! Sorry if this is too much information. Here is when we have our first mishap with the pump toilet (note to self for the future always make sure that boat has an automatic toilet). I don't think out toilet was in the best nick and I think there might have been a little problem with the handle locking but I had let it switched to fill and when hubbie sat down (he is too tall to stand up in the boat) he got little shock as it was full to the brim with water!!! You should have heard the expletives on our boat but at least it wasn't sewage, ewwww. Little drink and a spot of TV before a night in the tiny bed, roll on tomorrow.

We are back from a fantastic week on Rose Emblem. For 2 beginners we didn't to too badly! Thanks to everyone who helped provide loads of information in advance, I never stopped reading! I will be posting some holiday tales for anyone that's interested but for now here's a piccie of the lovely Rose!

Thanks everyone and thanks Grace and NonTecky all very reassuring

Thanks so much!

Hi Grace, thank you, no I don't mind at all, we are on Rose Emblem.

Thanks I can't stop reading, am getting very excited now!

Just wanted to say a quick hello! We are new to the broads and will be starting our broads adventures (just the 2 of us) in a few weeks. Have been reading loads and just wanted to say thanks for all the useful info on here.