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We have hired older and newer boats over the years and for the last 15 years or so have not had a boat that didn't have a fuel gauge. As I said before one boat we hired several times had a gauge retrofitted between times we hired it.

Surely the addition of fuel gauges on most hire boats has negated the need for dip sticks? We hired the same boat from Barnes a few times. The first time it had a dip stick but for subsequent hires a fuel gauge had been fitted. A dip stick wouldn't have worked in our boat. The fuel filler was at the back of the boat and the tank buried midships in the engine bay. Access to the tank was tight to say the least.

We always used to sneak into those unused end moorings with our little Sealine. They were great moorings.

We never had that on the boat but having got it on the motorhome now we wished we had fitted it. It is so useful.

The 2kw Webasto air blown diesel heater we had on our boat used a maximum of 0.25 litres per hour. In practice it was less then this as the thermostat kicked in and out. A 4kw Webasto air blown diesel heater uses at most 0.5 litres per hour. We never bothered about how much it used. We preferred to be warm and dry.

I think it was one or two vocal locals kicking up a fuss about nothing really. Everyone we have spoken too has welcomed the extra tourism and money it has brought to them. The facilities provided up here for motorhomes are excellent and it would be great if more were provided in the rest of the UK but we won't hold our breath waiting for that to happen 🤣🤣🤣 We are on night 14 and only one night has been on a campsite.

We have had two lovely weeks in Scotland in our motorhome. We are on our last night in Scotland before heading back across the border tomorrow. We have not seen any hostile behaviour towards tourists at all, in fact quite the opposite. Everyone has been very welcoming. It has been a brilliant holiday. We have a fair few trips booked in for 2022 already. Easter sees us at Burnham Deepdale, we are at Southwold for the Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend. We have a week booked in July for the Isle of Wight and our two week autumn trip next year takes in Devon and Cornwall. The motorhome will be busy next year 😀

Same here. We are due to set off to Scotland in the motorhome tomorrow. We have got half a tank of fuel in it so will get up there but we would have liked to have set off with a full tank

Another boat for the Ferry at Stokesby. Cracking breakfast.

And wages will have to rise to fill the job vacancies.

It is all too easy to blame Brexit for things but the truth is that prices for pretty much everything are rapidly rising worldwide as economies reopen. This is nothing to do with Brexit it is global shortages caused by manufacturing closing down due to Covid.

We bought a couple of refillable bottles for our motorhome in April. It cost £500 for the 2x11kg bottles, automatic changeover, hoses and a new regulator. Sounds expensive but the motorhome runs mainly on gas with the heating, hot water, fridge and cooking all being gas powered so we use a fair bit of it. It also has the benefit of not having to change bottles or remove them from the van, we just take the van to the pump to refill the bottles and we can fill the bottles from part empty. We have an LPG station a mile or so away from home which isn't the cheapest at 75ppl but even at that to refill one bottle is only £16.50. The cheapest we have paid was 47ppl at a Morrisons petrol station and at that one bottle is £10.34. It really won't take it long for us to repay the cost of the bottles. We are heading up to Scotland this coming weekend for a couple of weeks and we expect that we will use most of the 2x11kg bottles. Working on the most expensive LPG refill that will work out at about £33. Just one 11kg Flogas is £40 and a 13kg Calor works out at about £40 so about £80 for the equivalent amount.

Favourite pubs: North - Stokesby Ferry, South - Surlingham Ferry Most visited: North - Bridge Inn, South - Surlingham Ferry

We loved the Caledionian. Stunning scenery but the weather was very changable even in July.

The last week of September and first week of October are going to be marvelous weather for the whole of the UK especially the North of Scotland

The trouble with doing a few tweaks at once with the batteries/alternator/charging is that you never know which tweak has fixed the problem I would put my money on the loose alternator belt being the problem. That said we always used to charge phones, laptops, cameras, etc when we were on the move with the boat. Made sense to do that while the engine was running and the alternator generating. We try to do the same with the van and charge stuff up while we are driving.

Our boat was only 8'2" wide and some of the lock approaches felt narrow

I thought the locks were 10'6" on the Great Ouse!!

Won't take long for her to find a new home. She looks in super condition.

Assuming there isn't a composite boat show

How very true. We are finding it very refreshing with the van that parts cost £20 rather then £200 a time

We are doing that road to Applecross in our motorhome in September/October. Ours is a fair bit smaller than the one that is stuck there though!

We have an app for the heating and hot water on the van so that it can be controlled remotely. No need to get out of bed now to turn the heating on It is also gas heating which is so much quieter than the diesel heating on the boat was. No more noisy fuel pump ticking away.

We loved winter boating on our own boat and would certainly consider hiring in November, December or January. Even on sub zero nights we never left the heating on overnight. It gets too hot if you do. We instead took an extra blanket. First person up in the morning stuck the heating on an hour or so before we wanted to get up and we got up to a toasty warm boat. Only thing to watch is just how low the temperature goes and if the water is likely to freeze. Probably not so much a problem on the Broads with it being tidal but we got caught out a few times on the still waters of the Fossdyke and had to ice break our way back to the marina!

Sure it is possible. We have been through in larger boats in the past. What's the air draft on an Alpha 29/31? We have been through in a couple of those in the past. (Admittedly not in the last few years as we have either been on our own boat or hired larger dual steer or centre cockpit boats instead)