SwanR

I count myself fortunate that we first hired on the south without having been onto online forums or websites and as such knew very little about what we were doing but equally hadn't read anything about stronger tides and wider rivers that might have put us off. We love the south but the lack of suitable hireboats at the right price has meant that we have stayed north on our last few visits. Yes we could plan the dates so that the tides would be right to make our first Breydon crossing ... but then I think that we would need longer than a week given all that I read about how much time you spend getting up and down to Great Yarmouth and how mundane that stretch of the Bure can be. That has kind of put us off wanting to do it. But we definitely won't be hiring on the north in the middle of the season - June and September have both proved to be busier than we expected so March to May or October would be our preference. If we could hire on the south then we would still go in June - it just wasn't anywhere near as busy as the north the last time that we did it. Being in a convoy of boats on the northern rivers during the summer just isn't enjoyable or relaxing for us!

Welcome along Sean. There's a chap called Russell Thomson who is also blogging his adventures solo cruising on YouTube. He has hired two forward steer cruisers from Richardson's this year.

By the middle of the morning there was some warm sunshine on the coast at Lowestoft. Perhaps best to focus on that! :)

Many thanks for sharing your video Robin. I certainly identified with that feeling of realising that you can now leave your own things there.I know that my caravan cannot really be compared to your magnificent boat - understatement of the year lol! - but it has given us so much freedom to be able to get away from the 9-5 of the working week and truly slow down and relax more. I'm sure that you will find your feet in no time and I look forward to seeing how you get on.

Good to hear that your recovery is going well John.

'Will be watching this when I get a chance later in the week as I only had time to watch the first 30 minutes this morning. It's the same week that we were out and the Monday was extremely windy.I also want to see who gets the prize! He passed us on day two and I did give him a wave but didn't call out!

Great writeup. Interesting to read how busy the rivers and the moorings were. We are fortunate to be able to avoid school holidays and those busier times now that our children are grown up. But your tale is exactly why it can be better not to have a plan and just take each day as it comes ... although when we were there I was doing the same as you in terms of thinking which yard's boats might be using which moorings the night before or after the busiest changeover days.

Where's the desserts? Strawberry cheesecake or black forest gateau ?

Beautiful looking boat. I wish you all the very best Robin. Looking forward to hearing all about your new adventures. Safe travels.

Congratulations to Richardson's! Clearly what they do works for them and for their customers, not only on the boating front but in other areas of leisure. We did laugh when we saw the Richardson's bowling alley on the road that leads to our caravan! Personal choice means that we prefer the smaller yards and have only hired from them once. But that's not to say that we wouldn't go back if they had the right boat at the right price. And just a thought... as they were Hoseasons awards did they only encompass the companies who use Hoseasons for their bookings.

Congratulations. I think we have recently come to realise how much we need all the people who keep this place running. And how much we value the community. So my thanks to you for joining the moderators team.

Took me 24 hours before my browsers could find the site again. DNS issues as previously mentioned. Cleared the cache but it made no difference. However I must say thank you for the support provided via the Facebook group while I was trying to get back to the site.

Thanks for writing up your holiday to share with us all. Guess you're looking forward to the next one already if you have it all booked up.

I couldn't tell if that post was tongue in cheek or serious?! By the way ... the gritters are apparently out and about in Suffolk and Norfolk in the early hours of tomorrow morning so winter's on the way!!

Sounds as if it certainly was busy half-term week at all the popular places.

If that's the red and green posts just as you turn in from the Yare then that is very good news. I love the Chet ... apart from the posts which make everything feel so narrow and restricted. I know they are always there for a reason but if they're not needed anymore, which was something I read a long while ago, then taking them out will help.

Wow! Is that this morning? I have seen so many photos and videos of people caught up against that bridge that I am very wary of making sure that I turn round long before I get that far!

Beautiful photos. Especially love the last one from Cambridge Cabby. Ludham Bridge is so different when you are there out of season. I'm sure that will be an amazing cruise up the Ant today.

Don't get me started on poor spelling and grammar. Winds me up all the time at work. And even more so when I spot mistakes on professional websites and literature! People run a quick spell check but don't proof read. So they end up with words that are words but are not the right words. I do think that text speak is creeping into what some people find acceptable or perhaps is influencing how they write and speak. For example ... I will hear the younger folk in the office saying "Do you want to come with?" To me that's missing a word on the end. Or "I'm going London". That's missing the word "to" in the middle as well. Or "Enjoy that?" That's missing "Did you" on the front. It's lazy and it's more how one might text or Tweet when characters are at a premium or abbreviations often used. And as for those that say "pecific" not "specific" and write it incorrectly as well ... I have resisted correcting them in case it is a problem with pronouncing the "sp" combination ... but really I don't think it is otherwise surely they would at least spell it correctly. That's my rant over for a Sunday morning. :)

Thanks for the info Glenn. We did see a Richo's boat out recently that seemed to have electric hook-up and wondered whether they had brought their own lead or been supplied with one. It's a shame if companies don't have consistency in their response to customer questions as we have ruled Richardson's out on a number of occasions based on the answer we were given.

We really enjoyed lunch at the New Inn recently - it's somewhere I would always stop off if I happen to be passing through Horning around lunchtime and there are free spaces. As for Barnes asking you to leave at 8am, Ferry Marina were doing the same. They allowed boats from other yards to moor there even on Friday night knowing their own boats are due back in on Saturday morning. We heard them let all three skippers know when they moored up that they could stay but would have to be gone by 8. Only one of them adhered to that. The other two were up but hanging around and still there after 8.30. We saw Ferry's own boats arrive back and struggle to find anywhere to go. So I think it's decent of yards that allow it but people should expect to be gone quite early the next day. Great that you were able to get down to Coltishall ... we still haven't managed to time our trips so that we can get through Wroxham Bridge! Must plan better next time around. :)

We've used electric hookup in October and March so as to have the heating on in the evenings and early morning with no worry about the batteries. The problem otherwise can be that some Skippers Manuals say only to run the heating for a maximum time of two hours for example, without running the engine. Plus if you fancy a day with only a short cruise, and can hook up to the electric somewhere like Ranworth, then you can have a nice cosy relaxing day without having to think about the power you're using to keep the heating on. Not all boatyards will give you the power lead. We asked at Richardson's and they said they never give them out. So we always make sure that if hiring early or late season that it is a boat or a yard where we can take this. Ferry Marina, NBD and Barnes Brinkcraft have all done so. Personally I would never use a lead from any other source than the yard. I would think that you could be letting yourself in for a very large bill if anything went wrong.

Helen I had problems trying to book with NBD one year but hopefully it was a one off given all the other good customer service reported here. I've mentioned it before so it wouldn't be fair to repeat the story - it was one time and other bookings had been fine.

We bought three £1 electric cards when we were out recently. But we plugged in at Ferry Marina twice where it is free, although I have no idea whether they would have any space on their river frontage out of season. The other time we used an electric post was Ranworth. There was already money on one of the connections and even though we were there almost the full 24 hours we only used about 20 to 30p ... and that did include running the heating in the late afternoon, for a while in the evening and the next morning.

I can vouch for that excellent advice. We always take a kingsize sleeping bag with us as it solves the problem of a smaller double bed than we are used to and someone pinching all the quilt!! Hot water bottles are great if you get a cold spell and especially if you can't sleep with cold feet.