kpnut

If anyone sees Springers Retreat out and about from today for a week or so and get a blank look to a wave, it’s nothing to do with me! I’ve told Catherine and Roald that they’ll probably be spotted. They are chatty folk so say hi if you walk past on a mooring.

Hi Roy, I’ve just been told that Hathor is back at How Hill, much earlier than the lady who showed me round led me to believe. So I presume that Adea has gone back home.

It depends on what time I set off, but a wildmooring down the Ant (moor at Stalham) is good. If I have friends on board sometimes we go to our furthest point eg Stokesby and work our way back during their holiday.

Too right, both of you. Far easier to say where I don’t like. I don’t like Potter Heigham (I did like the quiet moorings), or Hoveton St. John’s, either in or out of the main season. I don’t really like Womack staithe or Ranworth or Salhouse in season but love them out of season. Wild moorings trump everything else!

I succumbed on my second read through of everyone’s tales and couldn’t not ‘like’ them all individually. There needs to be a ‘wonderful’ icon. The boatyard owners, past and present all ought to be very proud of themselves to have given so many folk such lovely memories.

Well Ian, what a super interesting thread, thanks very much. I could go through each post and just 'like them all' but that seems a bit silly, but the memories are just wonderful. In terms of actually going on big boats, I'm maybe one of the most newbies. That started in 2018, after a houseboat hire from Simpsons the year before, 2017, just Catherine and me and her dog. I realised there must be so much more to the broads than driving round to places in the car after we hired a dayboat from Whispering Reeds in Hickling and we had a grand day out, getting as far as Womack Dyke. 2018 we were on Concerto 3 from Richardsons. From that moment I couldn't stay away and persuaded friends to join me again in September on Bronze Gem. Then Concerto 1, Gold Gem, San Salvador, Supreme, Classic Gem twice, Magic Gem. All between 2018 and 2020. One common theme - all bathtubs. I fell in love with them, but to be honest, I've never been on any other type while it's actually going along! My friends got fed up with me annotating the Richardsons brochure layouts re-designing them for my own needs, so my plan to buy a boat started in 2017 and finished with the purchase of Silver Gem 7 in April 2021. Not a day that I've regretted the decision, even if I am poorer. I think I've caught up a bit in terms of time on the water, 20 weeks last year and 16 the year before. Catherine's continued to use the boat, now named Springer's Retreat with her now husband and on Saturday it will 6wk old grandaughter's turn to be introduced to the boat. I couldn't be happier about that. The two men in my life, husband Tony and son Richard can take it or leave it though which has surprised me. Tony's an agricultural engineer so I thought he'd live the mechanical side and Richard's usually up for an adventure. Oh well. BUT I suppose it first started in 1999 (I had thought it was 1997 till I got the photos out). We hired a houseboat on Lower Street in Horning, at the yard next to JB Boats where the little wooden bridge is over the dyke. From the river end of the dyke there was a willow tree that I think has recently been cut down. Near where Water Wytch moors. It came with a rowing boat that Catherine took to. She and Richard spent many an hour in it. I'd read about Cockshoot Broad that was only accessible by boat, so on the day between Tony leaving and mum arriving, I rowed them down there, not far I thought, and after a look round that boardwalk, decided to carry on to this interesting sounding new floating visitor centre on Ranworth Broad. We stayed to the side and got buffeted about a bit by passing boats. You never know, some of you may have passed me!!! Little did I realise that the river was tidal and it had been easy enough coming down on the tide. Rowing back from Ranworth to Horning against the tide was rather more demanding and I had horrible blisters on my hands on arrival back. Someone asked for photos. Looks like boats could moor up at the staithe at the visitor centre then. This was on a pond dipping day at How Hill. Funnily enough, I found this exact spot just this week on my wander round the nature reserve. I do think this is the same ranger who still takes the Electric Eel trips now. I'll show him the photo next time I'm at How Hill. I wonder what the name of that passing boat was. And this last one is in the garden of Phyliis Ellis, wife of the late Ted Ellis of Wheatfen. She invited us for a cup of tea when she spotted us taking a lot of interest in something near the footpath, which perhaps was at the bottom of her garden. Looking back at these, is it any wonder that Catherine chose a career as a freshwater ecologist? She gets to paddle about in rivers and drive boats! I'm going to enjoy re-reading this thread in more detail tomorrow.

The only thing I’m pondering is the heat and nappy situation! It hadn’t dawned on me till halfway through my trip when the pop bags from two dogs were beginning to build up. Best that can be done is a bucket with sealed lid in the stowage locker out the back. And mooring up regularly where there is access to good waste skips with heavy, closable lids. They are reverting to disposables for the duration of the trip.

Monday 26th June. An early walk along the riverbank at Fleet Dyke and onto the Bure as far as the pumping station by the two dead trees proved to me that the footpath is in a better state than it was in May. Good oh! Then off to Boulters for fuel and pump out. It was windy trying to get in but the nice young man grabbed a line for me to keep me on course as I reversed in. It was £1.45/litre and the pump out was £17 (every 4th one is free with the loyalty card). I stopped for a late lunch on my way back up the Ant and then it was time to return to my home mooring at Stalham. A fantastic trip all round. Seeing as I had time before 5pm, I sought out the person at Richardsons who services the life jackets for some advice about how to go about it, seeing as I couldn’t make head nor tail of the instruction book. He was extremely helpful. Paul R also gave me permission to borrow a buoyancy aid for a newborn. It’s very diddy. Catherine and Roald will be at the boat with 5 wk old Ellie for two weeks soon. Then the mundane task of packing up and cleaning the boat etc before the departure in the morning. Not long till I’m back though - just enough time planned at home to get my allotments sorted and do some creative cooking with all the produce Tony has undoubtedly had to freeze. There won’t be many days next month when the boat will be unused, which pleases me no end.

I think it was what Tom from the BA posted last year on the thread ‘State of the Footpaths’. Either that if he mentioned the link and I got it off the BA website. It was in response to me asking which paths the BA are responsible for and which the county council. The county council ones can be found on their website somewhere, again probably linked on last year’s thread about the paths.

I just found this, lurking in my phone from last year. It’s the mowing schedule for the BA moorings. Rockland short dyke is monthly. Hopefully this pdf will attach properly. Footpaths.pdf

Sunday 25th June. What a stunning morning to wake up to. I set off early (for me) after a walk round past the wind pumps and back. I only wanted to go as far as Fleet Dyke and the second wild mooring up the dyke was free. We had another walk down past the moorings, along past the staithe, along Kingfisher Lane and back along Marsh Lane and across the field to meet the carpark by the staithe. At the little pond halfway along Marsh Lane a man and his daughter of about 9 came along, they were geocaching, using an app to find little boxes hidden in obscure places. I suppose it’s like modern day orienteering. They were having great fun and I bet had walked quite a few miles without the littl’un realising. I showed them on the map how to get to the next place they wanted to be as they had to detour due to the path they needed being overgrown. I stopped again at the staithe where I saw my ‘natural phenomenon’ which turned out to be a water sprinkler (I took a photo and think I put it on the my day thread). It took an age to get back past the moorings as I stopped to talk to numerous people. And once back, we did nothing for the rest of the very hot day which explains all my rambling posts throughout the afternoon. Sorry. I’ll try to keep myself busier in future.

I’m interested to know if that’s flower beds they made first, so not planting directly into established vegetation. If you can remove the strong stuff, as Roy said, the more ‘delicate’ wildflowers are the way to go.

She looks completely adorable. And intelligent. I hope to meet her sometime. I think we might get her and Finlay mixed up , apart from the little smudge of white on the end of his nose.

Probably one of the many ‘laid up weeks’ while my boat was having work done. I’m catching up on my time out now.

Subject experts are needed at secondary school, otherwise lots of nonsense gets through. The idea for instance that a teacher of French can automatically teach Spanish is nonsense. Or because you teach maths, you can also teach business studies. BUT, and it is a very big BUT, primarily you have to be able to explain your subject in a multitude of ways to tap into everyone’s ways of thinking. I’ve worked with folk with PhD etc who just can’t communicate. But then that also applies to plenty of others without the highest qualifications.

Hemlock is also nasty stuff, poisonous if ingested. Why you would want to is anyone’s guess, it stinks. The ranger came and cut some down at How Hill yesterday, right by my boat and the pong was horrid. No visor worn while doing so. He did rake it up off the path afterwards.

Troyboy, I was wondering if you were down at all. I’ve seen loads of ‘spanners’ but not yours! You’ll maybe meet Finlay’s older brother if you keep an eye out for my boat. Liver and white. It’ll be my daughter and husband on board with tiny babe in arms. Or, hopefully not in arms if coming in to moor!

I do too Andrew. Didn’t save me on that walk mind you. Maybe we should be more ferocious still. Apart from long grass on moorings themselves, which is just part and parcel of amenity provision and open to interpretation, most of what we’ve been discussing falls under county council statutory responsibility, and is being neglected. Yep, and leaving everything long just allows strongly competitive species to take over, meaning far fewer of our more delicate native wild flowers surviving. Nettles, thistles, grasses all have their place in the ecosystem, but given half a chance they are thugs. I suppose it’s all similar to the establishment of Broadland carr. Neglect the maintenance and the environment evolves itself. Ok in evolutionary timescales, but I think most folk would prefer the navigation kept open and not left to silt up and turn into woodland over time. But the argument is more than keeping navigation open, it’s a fragile ecosystem and we neglect it at our cost. Much of the woodland up the river Ant and in the upper reaches of the Bure is due to poor maintenance of the reedbeds over many, many decades. Ok while it stays as wet carr, giving habitat for many rare localised species, but once it turns into dry oak woodland that fragile wetland habitat has gone. The loss of public footpaths means losing corridors for wildlife to move along (when we’re not thundering along with our sticks 😁), losing specific hedgerow plants that need certain amounts of light to thrive etc, so it’s not really about us at all but the ‘ways of the countryside’. I too will stop ranting now!

I’m down fleet dyke on a wild mooring, presumably one ‘made’ when the quay heading in chrisB’s photos was removed. The path around Upton marsh is always popular but from the river junction along to the first pump house it is very bad. I am presuming this is causing the noticeable lack of walkers. It also makes for an exhausting journey by those prepared to go along it. I don’t think it’s a case of underuse of paths, just vegetation growing faster than feet can keep pace with, hence the need for mechanical help! When I was out earlier and sitting by the little pond down Marsh Lane, two separate people came along to go along the footpath leading towards the edge of Pilson Green and Cargate Green. They both turned back as it was just too bad. I’d been along there in May and it was ok then. A stitch in time springs to mind. I did read somewhere that normal gear won’t cut grass etc when it gets above a certain height, so I suggest the answer is not to wait till it gets that high. No mow May is a shortsighted campaign in my view, from an ecological viewpoint as well as practical. It won’t be many weeks before we forget all our gripes again, as the vegetation dies down but in the meantime, it annoys me that simple jobs cannot be done properly by those whose responsibility it is to do them.

Most of the permissive paths I come across, which are not public footpaths as such but farmers allowing folk across due to historic reasons or to join up a circular route or to keep people off a dangerous road, are very well maintained. It’s often a relief to get on one for a short while.

Of course you’re right Andrew about flora and fauna and manicured is the last thing they should be. If you want that, the best place is a country park or whatever. But passable is needed, however often it’s used, otherwise as I said on my walk round Stracey arms etc that you can end up having an extremely long, and potentially dangerous (main roads etc) detour to get back home. On that walk, what should have been I think 3.5 miles turned into 8.5 and I fell a number of times through not being able to see the ground for vegetation. Ag least when councils don’t fulfil their obligations re potholes etc in the roads, you can claim for a damaged car. Not sure we could do the same for time off work with a broken leg etc after a fall on the footpath they are responsible for. I wrote to the county council about it but as yet have not heard back.

I’m out on a walk at south walsham and have been sitting in the shade overlooking the broad at the public staithe. As I arrived, there was a very strange thing going on in the water. Ive never seen anything like it. Looked like a starling murmuration, of insects or little fish fry or something, with dragonflies following it to and fro across the water. It made little splashing noises. Well I watched this for 5 minutes and decided I must take a photo so crept up slowly as I didn’t want to scare away whatever it was. You might have to zoom in on the photo. And promptly got rained on by a garden sprinkler who’s water was coming over the fence into the broad! My thought of becoming a famous scientist discovering some new invertebrate behaviour will have to wait a while longer. 😂

Wow. That’s lovely. But where was that line of mooring on Fleet Dyke? Between the ‘bend’ moorings and the ‘straight’ moorings that are there now? Or perhaps where all the wild moorings spots are? I know those two mooring sections are EA rather than BA

There we go Malcolm.

At least you could still see the path Malcolm. If you look back in my springers retreat thread at my walk from stokesby to Stracey arms in May. you’ll see some photos of virtually impassable public footpaths Last year, it turned out most of the public footpaths etc are county council maintained, not BA. I was talking to a ranger about similar MM. No good encouraging folk to come here by giving it a label and then it being unsuitable for the holidaymakers needs. It should be a good walking area, with three long distance trails and flat, so folk who can no longer traipse over numerous mountainous national parks can still go on a multi day excursion.