Coryton

And the Metro this morning.

My father always reckoned that a sharp metal spike in the centre of the steering wheel would encourage car drivers to pay attention to their surroundings...

Useful link - thanks. That company also has the Nicholson Waterway Guide - does anybody know if that is any good? My limited experience of boating has been on the Shannon and Erne where you need a good chart (and binoculars to read marker numbers) to make sure you know where you are and make sure you don't end up on the rocks. I get the impression that the Broads are a bit more gentle in that respect.

Very useful for visiting Theme Parks in England without all the crowds.

They offer to sell them in advance for £4 - I don't know if that's only for people who have booked one of their boats though. They also have an interactive on-line map at https://www.herbertwoods.co.uk/norfolk-broads/norfolk-broads-map/broads-map/

Yes - I recently clicked on a link to a video which I expected to be a walk-around of a hire boat...instead it just showed it cruising along. (Including several children not wearing life jackets). In my limited experience of hiring boats, where there has been more than one of a class there hasn't been any way of knowing which one you are going to get.

I know someone who deliberately gave Facebook the wrong date for their birthday, because they didn't see why they should hand over that information. The problem is that Facebook then sends out messages on their not-birthday. I expect (or at least hope) there is a setting somewhere to prevent Facebook from doing that sort of thing. Whether you like Facebook or not, sometimes it's the only practical way of getting information you need.

Yes! At the very least you might think they'd update the list of bank holidays on the gov.uk web site, which is still showing May 4th. It nevertheless seems to be real - there is a government press release here confirming it so it's not just the papers getting the wrong end of the stick. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me. Surely it should have gone into the "A good idea but we left it far too late to do anything about it now" box? Edited to add: Here's some more people this is a problem for: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48575410 It includes the quote "The UK government said it made the decision "as soon as practicable"." - I'd like to see that justified.

I have to say in those circumstances I'd let the school know, and if they couldn't or wouldn't authorise the absence I'd go anyway. It sounds as if you've done everything you reasonably could to play by the rules...but they got changed on you.

School holidays certainly aren't the same everywhere in the UK, which can be useful.

Utterly ridiculous. I would hope that companies and schools would be understanding...but they should never have been put in this position in the first place. Some things need to be planned well over a year in advance and moving bank holidays around ought to be one of them. I see it doesn't apply to Scotland...but they very much do their own thing on bank holidays which tend to happen on different days in different parts of the country.

For those interested in where old railway lines went, or how the country has changed in other ways, I'd highly recommend the National Library of Scotland web site at https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=5&lat=56.0000&lon=-4.0000&layers=1&b=1 They have lots of old OS maps, which are "georeferenced" so you can overlay them on modern maps or, if on a device with GPS, show where you are on them. I followed along on a recent bus journey across the South Wales Valleys and was surprised at how much of the time the map showed us running along a railway line. In some cases it was fairly obvious (road on an embankment with lots of underbridges), in other cases you'd never know. In the centre of Cardiff there is a pedestrian underpass of a rather unusual design - this is because it used to be the now defunct Glamorganshire Canal.

And that was nothing like...

Yes I was just thinking that. Rather like companies that realise all the people with a particular skill are about to retire and start to panic, as if it's something they couldn't possible have planned for. Anyway they can't move the bank holiday back now without causing more trouble, so the only answer is for us to have two bank holidays that week. Sounds good to me! (As someone with a contract that gives a fixed number of days leave + bank holidays...)

I've just seen that on www.broads.co.uk they say "In peak season, try to get moored up by mid-afternoon, or even earlier to bag one of the more popular spots." From what people have said here, that seems a bit over the top (whatever "mid-afternoon" is), which is good because it would be rather constraining.

I'd like to think that a head would be understanding under the circumstances. If they made it an INSET day it would sort the problem out for parents...but not for the teachers of course. I can see the logic to moving the bank holiday, but I'd no idea they could (or would) move one at such short notice. I'm sure this is going to mess quite a lot of people around. It's not as if the anniversary wasn't predictable.

I don't know. It would make sense I suppose if it was a steeply arched stone bridge and they don't trust people to take the boat through the centre. But looking at the photos there's barely an arch at all. They seem to be being very cautious. The "Glistening Light" (no idea what make that is) is given as 7' air draft (vs 7' 2" for the Beam of Light) and they say that it will only do Beccles Old at "extreme low tide", which from what I'm hearing here is a bit of an exaggeration.

As someone who is planning to be on a hire boat with little prior boat handling experience this summer (and none on the Broads), could I ask what I should do when someone in a sailing boat shouts something at me? Starboard could mean either I should go to starboard or that they're planning on going starboard and I suppose either way if I go starboard it should work out - if they're coming towards me anyway. But what do I do if they should "Water"? The "Skippers' Manual" doesn't seem to have anything on the topic, though it has a whole page on how to make a sailing dinghy work. I was once out walking when someone came up behind me and shouted "Track!", which apparently meant that he was in some kind of race and therefore expected me to jump out of his way. Unfortunately his meaning didn't get through. He just got a bit annoyed but I would imagine an interaction with a sailing boat could be a worse.

Quite so. I think we established on the other thread that it ought to go under more bridges than Hebert Woods let on. But I think we'd be better off sticking to the ones they say we are allowed to. The only ones that are out (according to the web site) are Potter Heigham (no surprise there), Beccles Old and Wayford.

Ah that sounds great. Thanks. I see your point about tides.

I did rather assume that Woods is a member. I expect when we get there they'll give us a list of where we can stay, though I'd prefer something other than a marina for the night given the choice.

Thanks for all the responses. If the people we meet when we're there are as friendly and helpful as on this forum I'm sure we'll have a great time. With two weeks to spend, we're definitely planning on coming South - it would be silly to miss out on it. I've not been put off getting there. We have (some) experience on Lough Erne having to keep to channels and stay between markers and managed pretty well. And we'll do it at slack tide. Potter Heigham. We'll probably be mostly cooking on board so being near a pub won't be a necessity, so long as we can stop at some point to top up water when we need to. Mud weighting sounds fun (do they really let you do that in a hire boat) but I'd be a bit nervous of doing it without a dinghy - no way of getting out in an emergency (though I suppose if the boat catches fire and you're the wrong side of it to the dinghy it's not much help). And we don't want the added hassle of having a dinghy to deal with - it will only be our second time hiring a cruiser. Fair point. Then again if we'd hired on the South we'd have to cope straight away. We'll have 2 or 3 adults to drive, and I get the impression that unlike Lough Erne we won't feel the need for a second person with binoculars to check marker numbers and work out where we are on the chart while the person at the helm avoids going off piste. Just curious...why is that? On the Herbert Woods web site they just say "Free mooring is available at any British Hire Boat Federation Boat Yards." without providing a list. Yes I didn't think it was as bad as the doomsayers make out. We should get through Wroxham, with a pilot (which is fine by me).

Hello everyone I will be hiring a boat for two weeks on the Broads in August - it will be my first time in the area and I get the impression that moorings will be quite popular. I imagine that some of what I've read is a bit exaggerated, i.e. you have to start looking at lunchtime if you want to find somewhere for the night. After all, everyone must find somewhere or they'd be illegally cruising around in the dark without lights all night. But I've read a few blogs from people out and about in August and I do get the idea that one needs to be fairly flexible. So for those of you brave (or foolish) enough to be out and about in August, what's your strategy for finding somewhere for the night? I believe that we're allowed to use rhond anchors (seems strange to me - my limited boating experience has been in Ireland where we were told to keep well away from river banks unless at a mooring) but are there many places where it's practical and permitted to use them?

They're all on You Tube now. You even get to see him...which I find quite interesting after many years of just listening to him.

Having seen photos of boats going through Potter Heigham bridge, I wouldn't think of trying it on my own. I found the bridges on the upper Shannon and Loch Erne interesting enough, and they were extremely generous in comparison.