SwanR

Glad you liked the video. Yes I believe you could walk along the bank from the Fishermans Inn as I overheard someone talking about this while we were there. I would think it would be an interesting place to fly your drone. I was zoomed in quite a lot at our first stopping point hence some of the footage is a little shaky. But I thought it was a view that might not be immediately obvious as to where it was. We were so fortunate that the tide times were right, and the rivers were busy. Once we had walked down the boardwalk to the second place where I took some of the video, we were almost by the water's edge. I was interested, watching it back, to realise how narrow the channel appeared at low water on that stretch of the Waveney. I can't tell you how stupidly excited I was just to see all the boats, and hear some of their engines as well!!

That was it then. Another wonderful few days away in a place that we love. I've put some video clips and photos together, including the swing bridge at Reedham and the boats at the entrance to Breydon Water. Enjoy!

Day five was Thursday, our last full day as we needed to drive home on Friday morning. So where to go? Well we have often thought about going to Burgh Castle, a National Heritage site and ... close by Breydon Water. As it happened the tide times were right for boats to be crossing Breydon mid-morning so we decided that this was to be our plan. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/burgh-castle/ It was a relatively short drive to get there and ... more free parking. We hadn't paid to park anywhere this week ... result! There were lots of people walking their dogs across the fields and the site is quite close to a number of holiday parks. We soon found the footpath across to a place meant for watching wildlife ... but I was far too excited watching the number of boats going across Breydon in both directions. Plus from this spot you can see the Waveney and the Yare so it was very interesting. We walked a bit further along a boardwalk that is part of the Angles Way and ended up right by the river a short distance from Goodchilds. It had turned warm and sunny again while we were out. We had a wonderful time ... I just got so excited to see and hear all the boats going past. Definitely a place to go back to, perhaps closer to sunrise or sunset when the light would be better for photography. Here's a few photos anyway.

Looks like an interesting option.

Looking forward to this holiday tale. We have hired both Fair Prince 1 and 2 a few years ago and loved them. Great boats that we would definitely take out again. I did hear that the canopy had been converted to electric and wondered if that is the case. Agree with Speedtriple that Langley Dyke is wonderful if you get south. Have a great time. :)

Day four ... and the week was whizzing by. I can't quite remember now what we thought that we might do but whatever it was, we changed our minds. We didn't want to go out too early so sat on our deck in the sunshine with a cup of coffee ... and decided that the day was so splendid that we might as well stay put and relax. Not unusual for us to do this on a middle day of any holiday. The caravan needed a clean through at some point so we decided we would do that later, but for now we would sit and chat and watch some of the other people who were around. The site is in theory all owners, open from March to mid-January, no facilities which keeps the site fees down to a more reasonable level than you would pay on a more typical holiday site. One can hire out one's caravan if one chooses but we don't. However this does mean that we get a few interesting people to watch as there are three or four vans near us that are rented out. There was a very entertaining domestic that took place in public ... the conversation is not one that I can repeat here but had us laughing about it for days!! We're right by the sea wall so we have a flat walk within two minutes of our door, along towards Lowestoft in one direction or back towards Gunton the other way. And there's a popular park, cafe and restaurant opposite. Today's photos, then, are a taste of what we have away from the Broads. And it's not the bit of Lowestoft that you would typically see if you visit when moored at Oulton Broad.

Thanks David, the photo I added in my reply above, which wasn't zoomed in so much, was without the extra colour.

Many thanks for the offer Speedtriple. I'll have to make a note of that and keep my eyes open for you. There's every chance that we will be at the caravan over the weekend ... football fixtures depending. We negotiate between matches and caravan weekends during the season!

Admittedly I had selected a different setting on my camera when I took that photo, whereas most of the time it's left on automatic. But sometimes when things are looking a bit grey I turn on the creative option that brightens the colours. Or in the evening I might select a scenic sunset option, just to see how different the images look ... or not. However, even without this, I did think that the two boats that I could see did look as if they had been cleaned up. Whether that's true I have no idea. Here's another shot without the added colour.

So onto day three ... Tuesday! It wasn't long before the inevitable conversation around where to go. In many ways this is exactly the same as our holidays on the boats ... a few ideas of what we might want to do but planning happens on the day subject to the weather and what we feel like doing. We do like places with somewhere to get coffee mid-morning so the news that the Post Office now also has a tea room had put Reedham onto our list. We probably hadn't been there since our last holiday on the southern Broads which I think was 2015. An interesting journey took us along the A47, turning off before Acle and heading cross-country through Halvergate and Freethorpe. Plenty of free parking along the quayside. We had a lovely walk from one end to the other watching the boats and the bridge swinging, before we stopped for coffee. The ladies in the tea room were very chatty and friendly, service was good, coffee and cake was very good and I would highly recommend supporting this business. I am sure that we will go back. After sitting outside in the sunshine we moved across to one of the seats on the quay near Sandersons. Watched the swing bridge which was interesting. We thought it wasn't going to close at one point, and as it turned out this was the day before they had problems and closed the bridge to river traffic. An indication of what was to come ... maybe. Hubby did the decent thing and helped a large Norfolk Broads Direct boat to moor. The father was at the outside helm on top and one of his children and his wife were waiting at the stern with ropes. But with tricky conditions we could see that he couldn't get close enough to the quay for them to get off so hubby went over and helped them out. It was busy there that morning and we thoroughly enjoyed watching the comings and goings. I could have stayed there longer but it was getting on for lunchtime so we headed back to the caravan for the rest of the day. You can probably spot the pattern here ... go out in the morning, get any shopping we need on the way back then stay around the site for the afternoon and evening. More of that on tomorrow's write-up. For now ... here's Reedham.

That is exactly it Helen. We've thought about going somewhere else but neither of us has much inclination for travelling far these days. And we've both let our passports expire!! As for the bridge clearance, I think it was around 6 foot but not sure what the state of the tide was.

This is also why we go north to Suffolk and Norfolk rather than south to Kent or Sussex. Much as I love East Sussex, it would mean going over the Dartford Crossing to get there on a Friday evening if we had bought a caravan down there. The A12 has its moments but the M25 is not on my list of things I must do!!

Thanks for this info. I have taken a look at the sales details online and she does look like a good boat, well cared for and with everything we would want apart. There's every chance that if we manage to move in the next five years or so, then we might consider a boat instead of the caravan, maybe a share in a syndicate when I'm eventually retired as well. I try not to put off living my dreams but sometimes a reality check proves one has to be patient a while longer.

Lol Jay, you are a one ... I thought somebody was bound to mention the C word ... Mods, please note it wasn't me! Maybe someone will gift you your boat Jay if you've been a good boy all year ... I'm sure that Grace will be along to vouch for your behaviour.

Day two brought a lovely lazy Monday morning, I didn't miss that post weekend back to work feeling and slept in a little. However I am a morning person so breakfast wasn't too late and the conversation soon turned to what we wanted to do for the day. "Can we go to Potter Heigham please?" I asked. Now I know that in some ways there's not a lot to recommend PH and not necessarily that much to do when you get there if you're not heading out on the river, but I love it. It's quite a nice drive once you get past Great Yarmouth, taking us up the A149. It always reminds me of family holidays at Seashore and Caister, and then it's very scenic as you go past Ormesby and Rollesby Broads. It's an area we think we might want to look at if we ever get as far as seriously considering that house move! First stop is always Bridge Stones for coffee, accompanied on this occasion by a cheese scone. Delicious! Then we had the obligatory walk around Latham's. We were actually looking for something we couldn't find and resisted buying all those other novelties we don't need ... including those early boxes of December 25th cards!! We crossed the road and went into Latham's angling store as hubby wanted to buy a new reel. He was impressed with their knowledge and service, and with his purchase made, along with a chat about Leyton Orient with the lad on the till, we finally headed for the quay to look at the boats for sale. Whilst you can't see it from this picture, this boat is called Jay ... hmmm ... wonder who ought to buy that then?! The sun came out while we were wandering around and I have to admit, that whilst I don't always see the attraction of some of the old wooden boats there was a fine looking example moored up here ... and there's Jay moored behind it. Here's a link to some info about this boat on the HW website. https://www.herbertwoods.co.uk/blog/history-of-spark-of-light/ So now that we were fed and watered, shopping done and boats perused, we headed for the obligatory seat by the bridge to watch what was going on. There was quite a breeze blowing and we watched a couple of boats really struggle getting in and out of the public moorings. One was a large Ferry Marina boat that was being blown sideways back to the quay before they could turn round so eventually came forward almost up to the bridge, gave it plenty of revs and managed to turn round. The other was an old Richardson's boat which ended up at 90 degrees to the bank until a chap from the Phoenix office assisted with the ropes. I didn't catch these on film as I don't like to show anything where someone might be identifiable ... we all seem to be fair game these days but I try not to be intrusive with what I share publicly. Back to the caravan we had another quiet afternoon needing plenty of sun cream to avoid getting burnt! Oh ... obligatory shot of the bridge coming up ...

As many of you know, we own a static caravan at Lowestoft and whilst still hiring the occasional boat as well, this allows us to visit the area much more frequently than we would otherwise do. Many summer weekends are spent in the area and when I can get some time off work, then we can have a longer break without having to book accommodation or worry about arrival or departure times, and knowing exactly what we will find ... because it's ours. We live just under two hours' drive away and it is a very stress-free thing to do. It suits us. Last week we were able to spend Sunday to Friday at the van. Yes, it was deliberately planned this way to be sandwiched between the first two Saturdays of the football season!! I know my place! ;) We had a really good journey up on the Sunday morning. Arrived, unpacked, had coffee and then headed to Tesco's for some shopping. We upgraded our caravan at the end of last year and had a new deck built around it. This was our first chance to make use of the extended outside space so the rest of a lovely sunny day was spent sat outside. Hmmm ... that leaves me with no photos to share from day one so instead here's a few pictures from a visit to Bungay a while ago now. Whilst not accessible as part of the Broads we had seen it on someone else's YouTube channel and were interested to visit. It had a similar feel to Beccles and we enjoyed a couple of hours mooching around.

Busy in Herbert Woods yard this morning. I have been watching the webcam from time to time. Didn't look like they let anyone leave yesterday. Today there were a lot of people about early on and I suspect that they didn't even do trial runs yesterday so are getting the boats away this morning. That is of course pure speculation from afar!

Were they a bit late getting this onto their FB page? People look to those kinds of places for definitive advice on days like today.

Finally ... one hour ago the Broads Authority posted on Facebook as below. Urgent Boating News - Breydon Water is currently closed to hire craft due to poor weather conditions and is expected to remain closed for the rest of today.

I see that Norfolk Broads Direct have cancelled all their boat trips and day boats for today. And I believe that Herbert Woods were not letting their dayboats out today either. It's certainly very windy here in Essex this morning with a few showers blowing through.

@CorytonJust checked the Broads Authority Facebook page. Posted one hour ago was the message below with nothing further about the weather conditions or Breydon Water. Good morning all from Great Yarmouth Yacht Station, Tides today 10/08/2019 for Great Yarmouth are High 19.03 and Low is 12.36 hrs ...PLEASE REMEMBER ALWAYS WEAR A LIFEJACKET. Any questions ring the Yacht Station on 01493 842794 Or 07766 398238

Picked this up on Facebook from the Broads Authority. Urgent boating news – Severe weather warning – The Met’ Office have issued a severe weather warning for this weekend. Very high winds with gusts of up to 50MPH are expected on Saturday along with a risk of thunderstorms. These conditions will pose challenges for even the most experienced boaters on the Broads. Inexperienced boaters should seek advice from their boat hire yards and Broads Authority advice is that you should stay securely moored to avoid getting into difficulties.

Interesting point. It certainly doesn’t look like great conditions in the forecast for being out and about. We watched a couple of boats struggling in the breeze on Monday at Potter Heigham.

I’ve got my eye on hiring one of these cruisers at some point. Saw Andromeda moored at Reedham earlier this week. I like this design even though I know that a lot of people don’t. My issue would be that there’s no support for your back when sat at the upper helm as far as I can see. I guess that keeps the airdraft down by those few important inches for bridge clearance. But I would be interested to know @TostockTimonier how you found this and how was the legroom at the upper helm too.

Of course the football season actually started last weekend for those in the lower divisions! Good luck to everyone’s teams for the season ahead. I know how passionately the faithful follow their chosen ones. We’ve been at the caravan Sunday to Friday this week so that hubby could get to the first two matches of the season.