Cal

That's a difficult question as there are so many good moorings. On the North it would probably be St Bennetts on a warm summers day watching the sun go down with a tipple to hand. On the South we really liked the Commisioners Cut with great walks for the dog and a good curry house just down the road. But there are many other places we love to moor such as Coltishall, Stalham Staithe, How Hill, Stokesby, Loddon, Reedham, Norwich, well pretty much everywhere. I think it would have been easier to ask for our least favourite mooring.

We have seen Cranes on the stretch from Stokesby to Yarmouth in the side ponds. Magnificent birds.

You can expect this rubbish weather every weekend in February. Naughty-Cal is booked to go back in the water and onto the sales pontoon for the beginning of March and we only have outside jobs like polishing left to tackle

Yep. Utterly idiotic.

We must have been doubly lucky last time we went with friends as we got both boats on there!! We had great weather that year as well for the two weeks holiday.

We have got on there every time we have taken our own boat! Could have squeezed on in October when we had the hire boat but decided to stay in the boat yard for our last night instead.

We must have been lucky but we have always managed to get moored on there when we have wanted too. This was in July.

That is also another reason we are not entertaining a caravan. We plan to make us of a lot of pub car parks and also french aires when travelling europe. Caravans are not allowed.

A caravan would not work for us. We can't park it on the drive for one and neither of our three cars would tow a big enough caravan so we would have to replace a car as well. The motorhome we can park on the drive (restrictive covenants say no caravans/boats) and it will be replacing my car which does very few miles a year (less than 1000 miles this year)

The van we want (Benimar Mileo 202) has more living space than our boat so I dont think lack of space will be an issue! It has a clever electric drop down bed with the saloon below so you get seating for 6 comfortably 8 at a push plus a fixed bed in a van that is a shade under 6m. It also has a big shower room with separate shower stall and a decent galley with full cooker and a large fridge freezer. Facilities we could only dream of on a little boat like ours. It wont feel like camping! We dont plan to stay in one place for more than a couple of nights, we rarely did with the boat. We enjoy exploring and finding new places. So having to up sticks and decamp wont be an issue as we wont have much to decamp.

We have done everything we wanted to do with the boat. Time to move on to a new adventure and explore new places as well as visiting places we know and love.

We hope to have our boat sold early next spring. We have decided to hold of putting her on brokerage just now as winter is arriving and wait until spring is in the air. But anyway I diverge. We hope that one of our first trips when we get our new motorhome next year will be a trip to Norfolk and Suffolk with a few days pottering around on the Broads. Does anyone know of any good campsites or pubs (or similar) that allow motorhomes (small under 6m) to stay. We won't need full facilities every night as the van will be self sufficient. We will however need a site every few days to deal with emptying and refilling the relevant onboard tanks and ensuring that the batteries get a decent overnight charge. We will probably call into Wells nest the Sea on the way down which will be a sited night or two and we will call into Southwold as well which will be a sited night or two so probably won't need facilities too quickly when we arrive at the Broads. Any suggestions welcomed.

We will be interested to hear any reviews from people that actually have them as we are considering getting one for the motorhome we will be getting soon.

Dog Vomit?

We have just hired from Richardsons with our small dog Sydney and the staff at the yard were great, we had no complaints with them or their service. Sydney got lots of fuss from the cleaning ladies. We paid the extra £35 for the dog but made sure that we had kept the boat clean and tidy throughout the period of hire, not always easy in October when the ground is constantly wet so there really wasn't much extra cleaning to be done, mind you being a poodle cross Syd doesn't moult. It would be different if he was a heavy shedder in which case we would have taken our own handheld vacuum cleaner to keep the boat cleaner.

So onto the review of Swan Ranger. First things first she is a lovely boat. Very warm and dry and in many ways ideal for winter boating with the lack of drafty sliding canopies but in other ways not so ideal with the very limited visibility from the lower helm. In fact driving from below really cant be recommended although we did on rainy days and managed well enough. She handles very well, in fact easily the best Broads boat we have hired on that score and the prop is well matched to the hull and engine. Slightly under propped perhaps but that is for the best with a hire boat. There were just the two of us onboard, and little Sydney so we had loads of room onboard. We used the bow cabin to sleep which had ample room and storage and stayed nice and warm and dry. The galley is a bit tight but perfectly manageable. Sunday lunch was tackled and successful. The saloon was comfortable and offered good views out and again stayed warm thanks to the radiator heating. This is the first boat we have hired with radiator heating and we were impressed with it. While it is slower to react than blown air it heats the space well and keeps its heat well after the unit is turned off. The aft cabin we used as storage was spacious with a large double berth and en suite with bath and shower. By far the best feature was the upper deck which offered far reaching views of the Broads not seen from the lower boats. It is cold up there in October but well worth getting wrapped up warm for. I have struggled slightly with getting on and off when moored side on this week but that is not a fault of the boat, the water levels have been higher than usual. Although stern on mooring made getting on and off much easier. The stern is well designed for that. Overall this has definitely been our favourite boat we have hired so far and despite a few small problems at the beginning of the week we had a great time and will certainly hire Swan Ranger again some time soon.

Just had a beautiful breakfast with the produce we bought in Wells yesterday. The black treacle bacon, old English sausage and duck eggs were delicious. I will write a proper review of Swan Ranger when I get time later today.

Did it over top?

Ring them. They are one of the few yards that hire put in February and November. Think it is only selected boats though. Not the whole fleet.

Herbert Woods hire in November.

We timed it just right to have them at midday. By the time we had walked the dog on the beach and done some shopping it was dinnertime.

Despite the grey day Sydney loved his morning on the beach and then it was time to head back for fish and chips at midday. And no visit to Wells is complete without a visit to the butchers to stock up the freezer We are almost home now. Just a quick supermarket stop for provisions.

We have just handed the boat back to the yard and had a very swift and efficient hand over. We surprisingly got £40 of our fuel deposit back which we had not expected given how much the engine and heating have been running this week. Time to head to Wells next the Sea now for some fish and chips.

They send a few van loads of staff down to weigh the boats down and get them through. They had to do it last week as well.

Yes lots of water at Reedham. That wasn't high water either. The meal at the Bridge last night was excellent. Perhaps the best we have had so far this week. Looking forward to a curry tonight.