SwanR

Spectator sport at its finest if one happened to be sitting in the right place.

Well it now looks the complete opposite. Must have been a mad moment with boats arriving into Wroxham that were picked up yesterday perhaps. On the webcam now there is just one boat about to moor at the pilot's pickup point before the bridge ... and nothing else moving apart from all the swans.

Certainly looks chaotic at Wroxham. Just snapped this at 11.15am on the webcam ... and that's before today's hirers pick up their boats from Barnes and NBD and get out on the river!!

Great holiday tale and lovely photos too. Certainly sounds as if the moorings were all very busy. I haven't ever been in August but June and September on the northern Broads have been bad enough. March, May and October have been great for experiencing the rivers when it's a lot less crowded.

It's an interesting list and good to see that Norfolk as a county has three items.

Your write-up certainly didn't sound boring Jay. I'm sure that we all end up going up and down the same stretches of river several times in a week but we never tire of it. And I often find a little nugget of information, somewhere I haven't been or as in this case, I would never have thought of walking to The Dog or to Ludham from St Benet's. But when you really think about it, it makes sense geographically that you can do this. Also always good to hear recommendations of boatyards and boats.

Very cute dog. We really like that stretch up the Thurne, especially early morning when there's not many other boats about.

Sounds like you have it all worked out. Hope you have a great time.

One of our favourite places as well. The first time you see Cockshoot Broad, when you've no idea what's behind the shutters in the hide, is absolutely magical.

I do enjoy watching the comings and goings at Ludham Bridge. Have a great time afloat.

Well said Grace. One of the worst things that people can do is to make sweeping generalisations. Given the end line of Snowy's original post I think that he or she knew exactly what they were doing! And actually ... before you point the finger at hirers you would need to talk to all the boatyards and ask them to fit something other than a rev counter in their boats. And to ensure that everything works properly. The boat we had in May had a fish nav thing with a speedo but it didn't work. And the rev counter stayed on 1000 even when the engine was off and then moved up from there when you were going along. Impossible to have any kind of accurate idea of what speed you were doing other than by guesswork and intuition from experience. Yes we did report this to the yard when we took the boat back. But I've no idea what the chances were of them fixing it on a busy Friday turnaround schedule. Given that Snowy has made 8 posts on this topic I can only wonder whether you are trying to rack up posts towards the 50 for full membership. Right, rant over, I'm off to work!

Thanks for the replies. I literally couldn't even get a cursor so couldn't type anything. I have since run every clean up routine that I can find on the tablet and normal service seems to have been resumed.

A very enjoyable read and I always like seeing everyone's photos.

We had 20 to 30 caravans on a local green area last week. They broke down a barrier to get in. Stayed for 5 or 6 days before moving on. But the council had to come in to remove all the rubbish and deep clean the children's playground which had been used as a toilet. Disgusting behaviour.

Morning Techies! I can't post on the forum at the moment from my Asus tablet. I can like posts but the reply box is grey with no toolbar and I can't make it active. Creating a new post is the same. It's been fine before but this started yesterday. Tablet has been restarted. I've logged out and back in. I'm using Chrome on there not the app. My iPhone via Safari is fine. But when I'm at the caravan I only have wifi on the tablet which is why I want to get that working rather than using my data allowance on a small screen on my phone.

I do believe from posts on our Facebook page that they have reserved the last space at the New Inn. Seems a very sensible plan for first time boaters wanting to be sure of somewhere to moor and something good to eat. :)

The cover did make a real difference. We don't generally bother with outside covers for windows, can't be doing with clambering around the outside of the boat, but this was well worth putting on every evening.

On the subject of draughts ... I agree that this is one downside to a forward steer cruiser at the cooler ends of the season. As for the centre cockpit design, Fair Prince was great. There was a cover to put on the outside over the back of the sliding canopy, hopefully that describes its position well enough but I've pasted in a photo below. Once the cover was in place after mooring up for the day we were perfectly warm and cosy inside.

My hubby would agree with you there. He's 6'4 and I'm 5'5 so even putting up a mirror at home at a height to suit us both can be a challenge! He tries to remember to wear a hat whenever we're on a boat to protect his head after a very nasty bang getting out in a hurry to moor up a few years ago. Headroom is never great for him .... another reason we bought a caravan instead of a boat ... he can stand up straight all the time!!

Afternoon Mike, Haven't hired from Summercraft as their boat plans do look as if the bed position wouldn't suit us. Hubby is 6'4 so it's the one thing we don't compromise on. We have stuck to island beds mostly - even if the description / plan makes it look as if you can walk round the bed watch out for the ones with headboards in the middle of the room ... you can't hang your feet off the end of those! So far we have hired Swan Reflection, Fair Prince, Silver Emblem, Rose Emblem, Moon Beam and Brinks Sonnet which have all suited us fine. As Ray has suggested, contacting the yard is probably your best bet.

As returning customers booked onto an "Elite Fleet" boat, hubby and I were given a free bottle of bubbly by Barnes Brinkcraft this year. So they're not just giving it out to certain groups. I do find it strange that there appear to be no rules, or whatever you want to call them, around drinking and helming a boat ... but that is definitely a whole other conversation.

Still more medals to be won today. I think that's my evening's viewing sorted out then. Morning session: 07:45 - Men's and women's 50km race walks (Dom King) 12:20 - Women's 20km race walk (Gemma Bridge, Bethan Davies) 14:20 - Men's 20km race walk (Tom Bosworth, Callum Wilkinson) Evening session: 19:00 - Men's high jump final (Robbie Grabarz) 19:10 - Women's discus final 19:35 - Women's 5,000m final (Laura Muir & Eilish McColgan) 20:10 - Women's 800m final (Lynsey Sharp) 20:30 - Men's 1500m final (Chris O'Hare) 20:55 - Women's 4x400m relay final (GB in lane five) 21:15 - Men's 4x400m relay final (GB in lane three)

Come Dancing in its original format is long gone as far as I know. But the BBC seem determined to keep Strictly Come Dancing going with "celebrities" for as long as possible. The format is getting rather tired though, and it's anyone's guess as to how many of the "celebrities" one will actually ever have heard of at the start of the series. Although they may be household names by the time it finishes. I do love the music and the dancing and the beautiful dresses ... but I'm not sure I can be bothered with it this year. And yes, I really hope that we never see Mo or Usain strutting their stuff on the Strictly dance floor!!

I enjoyed watching the athletics this week. But the media did their usual job of trying to make the story what they wanted it to be with all their attention on Usain Bolt and Mo Farah who in the end couldn't deliver what the media wanted them to. The rest of us were just happy to see them out there competing and giving it absolutely everything they had in pursuit of their sport.

Good of Clive to give us a heads up here. Now if you could just add Swan Reflection to the list for £5000 we might have a deal.