marshman

Are the Thames and the Gt Ouse just as expensive? Or more so?

My father used to moor our first boat there - he converted a 16' ex lifeboat with a transom stern in the front garden and we moored in the Yare dyke from about 1952/53. My enduring memory of that place is seeing my father bent over a British Anzani twin winding the rope round the top time and time again , trying to start the damn thing!!!!!

Sad to report that £20 is no longer outrageous for 2 large cod and chips - thats about what the Blofield one charges although its a tad under that! I have seen others in the City at a higher level! As we all get older we fall into the same old trap of forgetting what things cost in the real world - I can show you plenty of eating houses, nice ones I admit, that now charge £35 for a decent steak and its quite easy to ratchet up a bill of say, £150 for two! Its ok - I have noticed it too and whilst you can still get decent food for less than you might expect, as Ian will confirm, prices have risen steeply. For people who have access to two salaries, perhaps they are happy to pay, and indeed do, but it rather puts into perspective a £10 mooring charge. In times of inflation we do perhaps need to readjust our base line.

I got charged for stopping at Yarmouth waiting for about 45 mins for the tide to turn so, so everything is possible!!!!!!

But Vaughan - you have reopened it. Lets close it again - whilst I know your views, there were plenty with differing views including people with a lot more knowledge than I. Lets close it again once and for all!!!!!

Thanks Tom - as I suspected!!! Still - it gave several hours of fun for several posters to consider conspiracy theories. Me - I just carried on reading my book!!!!

If you were trying to pick up a buoy in a fairway, you would find a boat hook very handy indeed - they do have a function!!!

And get a decent gas boiler - don't waste your money on the cheaper brands!! Waste of money

Car parking charges anywhere are pretty undemocratic too but visitors still pay them without moaning - there used to be loads of places around the coast where I remember parking for free where I now no longer can! Its not as though you are forced to moor at Ranworth - as I have said its probably the last place I want to be BUT if you want to go to the pub or the tea rooms and can get a spot, I dont think £10 is unreasonable!! Perhaps if this encourages people to ask for dinghies, that trend will grow again - or you can buy my 10' rowing and sailing dinghy sitting on my front lawn!!!! That must be worth more now with this furore!!!

I don't think it will affect the shop or visitors to Ranworth - people mooring up tend to be in the minority compared to visitors going to the village as a whole which is generally rammed in the summer. Indeed as it seems lots of people won't bother to moor there now, it might reduce the crush of boats trying to!! If you dont want to pay, mudweight and enjoy the boats jostling to pay, after all what is a pretty modest fee. I pay rates yet have to pay to park in Norwich and I think that visitors will just pay, as they do at Norwich YS, Salhouse, Yarmouth, Oulton, and Beccles plus many other places. At least you don't have to download an app as you now do in lots of places. Neither do I think the Ranger will get a lot of abuse - people understand you have to pay to park your car all over Norfolk and quite frankly if you do abuse the guy doing his job you should be ashamed of yourself. As we get older we have to understand we live in a real world and not in one based on values some 50 years ago! Well thats my view despite the fact I have never ever moored at Ranworth!!!!

And like it or not, he is still trespassing and camping without permission. Where he is between White Slea and Heigham Sound is on Norfolk Wildlife Trust land and whilst in winter, the likelihood of damage by fire is lower, it can still happen. Fires burn down into the peat, or even old mud which it is in that spot and can spread underground - believe me I know as I once had it happen on part of Catfield Fen - the fire burned quite some distance underground overnight despite having taken great care to have put out the original fire. At the time we were burning some old reed and the aftermath was quite an area of reed bed - fortunately we were out again the following day in the same spot and eventually dug down to ensure it was out, but it can be so dangerous however careful you are! Fortunately it was quite fortuitous that it actually burned the wrong way - towards the edge of the bed and not the rest of it.

Looks as though he is on that bit of land going northward through where the silver birch trees are between Heigham Sound and White Slea on the starboard side - used to be nearly all silver birch trees but the NWT cut most of them down fairly recently. Interestingly, or not that piece of high ground where the trees were, and he is "camped" and is where mud was dumped many years ago when Hickling was dredged years ago , probably by the GYPHC. The birch trees grew on the "raw mud" and it has been the aim of both the BA and the NWT to remove the trees - they would never be able to get back to marshland but shows how just dumping mud anywhere can inadvertently changes to landscape which would have been just open reedbed!! Yep definitely to be discouraged - there are bittern around that area and its not far from the Cadbury White Lodge. Pretty isolated but he would never have got permission and is quite definitely trespassing. Does he care? Of course not!!!!!

A chart of the Broads? I have an old Hamiltons and an OS map!!!!! Generally speaking if you can see the bottom is probably too late as you are aground - if you can't then its probably ok!! You don't really navigate the Broads, normally you just point and follow the water!!

Must admit I have never had any problem on Salhouse either - cannot think how many times I have mudweighted there either in the bay round the corner or close up to the trees the Horning end. The advantage of Salhouse is that as its virtually surrounded by trees so there is a lot of shelter available - indeed I often tie up to the trees so I don't have to get the mudweight dirty!!!!

Camping on private land IMHO is not really to be encouraged, unless you have permission from the landowner. The last thing we need to do is encourage wild and unauthorised camping leaving behind the detritus often evident from irresponsible individuals - well thats my view anyway!!!!!

Don't be too concerned about the tide issue up north - cannot really think of a Broad where the rise and fall exceeds about 6" so its pretty irrelevant. Down south its a bit more important on Rockland, Surlingham (Bargate) and Oulton but just let out a little more slack at the outset and Bobs's your uncle. Even if he's not most Broads are surrounded by trees or scrub and you won't come to a lot of harm!! Dangling to clean the mud off is highly effective but you must expect the comments - I was doing that on S Walsham Inner Broad where you cannot mudweight, when I was chased by an irate old git in the local trip boat who told me I couldn't stop, so I just had to politely point out, that as the boat was moving, all be it slowly, I wasn't actually stopped and that he could buzz orf!!!!! He did much to the amusement of his passengers!!

Perhaps now I should advertise the rowing /sailing dinghy I have sitting in my front garden!! On mudweighting, check which way the wind is blowing and nose slowly towards the side from where its coming i.e. head to wind. I have only been caught out once in 20 years when the wind went round 180 degrees overnight. Usually in summer months the wind dies away anyway and you can have those stunning evenings the Broads are famous for. Don't lower the mudweight slowly, just let it go making sure your foot is not in a loop and the weight will take itself into the mud.

And there was me, foolishly having read it, thinking that exercise was good for you!!!!

Hipperson at Beccles have some really great houseboats

Well - whats 200 miles in the general scheme of things!!!!

Whilst there is no denying that perhaps in this case, the satisfaction of the treatment was first class, what is much more worrying is that quite clearly in some areas they just do not have a clue whats even going on!!!! A friend of mine, who has had a serious gynecological problem for over 5 years, and I mean serious as it affected radically her day to day life, has just had a letter saying that there is no possibility of her even getting an appointment as a result of her numerous referrals over the years as there are just no appointments available in the gynecological department whatsoever. Not quite true as she had already seen a consultant some 9 mths ago who explained the wait for an operation could be a least 3 years! Funny that if it was still not entirely true - some 4 months ago she just rang on the off chance the Dept to question her progress on the list, who when pressed, asked if she would take a cancellation? Of course was the reply - well could you come in for op on Thursday? Done and dusted that week, and very successful it was as well - she was on the table for nearly 3 hours putting right some previous botched repairs and is now on her way to full recovery. Funny the Department have no record of it despite it being done by one of the Depts senior consultants!! Someone else was referred for a straight forward scan on her upper back- oh sorry we currently have a backlog of over 6000 scans. "We are afraid it could take some time to catch up" I have always had such faith in the NHS but its not money that is needed, but a complete change of culture - others I know have always dealt with the NHS in the walk in hearing aid department - that of course is no more as you have to make an appointment. Don't ask to change the type of aid which is malfunctioning and cutting in and out -that decision now has to be discussed by a bl**dy Committee! So don't get your hopes too high that any "ordinary" problem can be easily fixed!!!!

Saw that elsewhere - he is good but of course, nobody believes him! He makes a valid point!

Its not the smell that causes the problem but the phosphates in the shower gel!! As for your bath was that when you were only allowed 4 inches of water????

Well - it would help if all boats had grey water tanks and people didn't insist on showering so often!!!!!! The causes of pollution are many and varied and you should remember too, the the rivers drain a huge agricultural area, much of which is fed by rivers that accept runoff from many many fields fed with fertiliser granules. But take some comfort from the fact that there are now many more white water lilies around and they, to me, are an indicator of better water quality - yellow ones are more tolerant of dirtier water. Perhaps you should remember what the rivers were like before holding tanks and with many many more hire boats! I am sure Vaughan will confirm that situation!! Kids used to swim in that then and I frequently see kids still swimming today - most seem to survive! Incidentally the Potter barrier is not controlled or operated by the BA but the raising and lowering is controlled, or otherwise by the EA

I guess its similar but perhaps not so evident as I think the tidal rise and fall is much higher - even at Geldeston the rise and fall must be all of 18" or thereabouts. I think we sometimes forget that the BESL scheme cost £150m raising the flood defences around Broadland - because of rising water levels!