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Fair Regent - September 2017


YnysMon

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Saturday 23rd September

Both of us awoke early this morning, well before the alarm, so decided to get up and get on our way to Wroxham as early as possible.  Graham packed the car whilst I took Seren for a dawn walk.  We managed to get on our way just before 7am.

We did our usual stop-off at the Caxton Gibbet Costa’s (coffee and sausage toasties) and continued on to Wroxham arriving around 9.30am.  Graham took Seren for a walk whilst I went to do the food shop in Roys.  After that we went for a wander around Wroxham.  Checked out the gap under the bridge (just over 7’, but then it wasn’t that long after high tide), had a look in the pet shop near the bridge for a toy for Seren, but didn’t see one cheap enough (she tends to tear them apart).  We eventually found one in Roys Garden Centre, where they invited Graham to take the dog in.  I got three Chris Crowther books in the Chandley, having bought the first two on our last visit.  Had another walk along the river and the railway station before looking for somewhere to eat. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t really hungry, so didn’t fancy anything off either The Old Mill Menu nor the Riverside Caff menu.  Graham had tea and a brownie from the latter, sitting at their outside tables, whilst I tried to dissuade Seren from barking at swans. 

Making our way back to the car I popped into Roys again and bought a Steak Slice for my lunch.  It was lovely; really freshly made. 

Around 12.30 we made our way to the boatyard (Norfolk Broads Direct/Faircraft Loynes – whatever) found the customer parking and had a bit of a nose around.  We went to reception just before 1.  I’d emailed them a few days earlier to ask whether it might be possible to pick up the boat earlier than their normal 4pm pick-up and they had replied that they’d put us down for a 1pm arrival.  Although the boat wasn’t quite ready (we were early!) we had a very friendly welcome, were signed in, paid for the dog (not sure why they don’t charge for dogs in advance) and Tracey took my mobile number so she could call me when the boat was ready.  We went back along the quay as far as The Boatshed pub and back and were about to walk back to Hoveton when I had a call from Tracey (pretty much dead on our agreed arrival time of 1pm).

The chap that came to do our handover just took us through the essentials before moving the boat out further along the dyke around 2pm and hopping off the boat.  We soon felt like idiots though, as we were both completely flummoxed by the throttle.  I did my usual panicky thing and asked Graham to take over when I felt I couldn’t control the boat, but he didn’t fare much better.  The two Ferry Marina boats we’d hired previously had responded to the slightest movement of the throttle.  This throttle did nothing for ages – you moved it forward, and a bit further, and a bit further, and even further before anything happened.  In our confusion and lack of forward steering we drifted across the dyke and had to fend off the opposite quay heading.  Thankfully we managed to get it into gear by the time we got to the main channel.  The main difficulty then was following a boat that was (commendably) ticking down through Wroxham at about 3mph.  Unfortunately, our minimum speed seemed to be ever so slightly faster than that, so I had to try to slow down now and again by going into reverse slightly so as not to catch them up.  I was starting to hate that throttle as it wasn’t immediately obvious when we had forward motion and when not – not until we got used to it anyway, and that took several days.  I did like the fact that the boat had GPS though.  There were lots of other things that we liked about the boat, but I’ll cover those in a review.

We were lucky with the weather today: had some rain on the car journey which had dried up by the time we got to Wroxham, and by the time we picked up the boat the sun was just starting to come out. 

There were quite a few cruisers about but far fewer sailing boats and day-boats than there were in May or July.

From Wroxham we pootled down the Bure, observing the speed limits far more than we had on previous trips. Having GPS helped with this, as did NBD giving us a map which had the speed limits marked on it.  On previous trips we’ve relied on our OS map and an occasional glance at the HUD GPS thingy on our phones.  We made our way past Acle (moorings fairly busy) and Stokesby (moorings full) to Stracey Arms where we moored at the furthest point down river. 

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Graham had unpacked some stuff on our way down, but we now unpacked the rest of our stuff and made the bed (a first – Ferry Marina and Hunter’s Yard beds are always made up for you).  We then watched Gardener’s World before settling down to read for a while before dinner.  Dinner was quiche from Roys with new potatoes and salad.  Around 9.30 Graham took Seren for a walk and we were settling down for the night by 10pm, ready for an early start tomorrow.  Yarmouth passage!

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Helen

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Great tale, thanks for sharing. 

We've hired 2 of the Regents in the past including the one you hired. I can't recall any particular problems with the throttle though, sounds like you had a problem, loose cable maybe? Maintenance was the only aspect we were less keen on with NBD - great in other respects. 

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That's the beauty of 'ownership', in our case in a syndicate.  You get to know the boat, how she feels, throttle tolerances, foibles etc.

Unfortunately our time is coming to an end with the shares on the market. 

Thoroughly recommended though.

Sue 

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Sometimes you get an unresponsive throttle because some boat yards set tick over high so that the high power alternator can charge the batteries.

Sitting at 750 revs won't do it. So you will notice tick over at about a thousand.

Most pumps won't let you set it this high unless you adjust throttle lever stop and you end up getting a big dead zone on the lever.

Trouble is this still Will push you through the water fairly briskly makes slow manoeuvres tricky.

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I'm not sure I understood much of this Cheesy, not being technically savvy,  except that it rings bells with when the handover chappie told us to set the revs at a certain point when running the engine in the evening when stationary, also that tick over was just above 1000. Not that we did run the engine in the evenings. Luckily we didn't need the heating.  We also noticed that despite being hooked up to shore power that the water wasn't really heated effectively overnight.

I'm wondering how we got away without running engines in the evening on Ferry Marina boats, even with using the heating. One of the problems that we had with  this boat was the inverter not working most of the time when we were underway.    I did come away with the impression that this boat wasn't mechanically maintained to the high standards of Ferry, but it was certainly very, very comfortable and very clean and really spacious for a boat for two. 

Helen

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Enjoying reading your write-up Helen. It certainly does make a difference when the bed is made up for you. Just one of those nice little touches that helps you to settle in quickly.

I found it took quite a while to get used to Sonnet's steering earlier in the year ... I thought I was past the point of zigzagging down the river but this wasn't as responsive as other boats we have had.

Incidentally, when out on Fair Prince we were told that we would probably have to start the engine to get the heating on in the mornings if we weren't on an electric hookup somewhere. Being October it was pretty chilly and sure enough we had to do exactly that although we did try to wait until after 7am but we do like an early start.

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Hi Helen 

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think NBD are too hot on maintenance sadly. The shore power on the Regents is a bit of s con, all it does is charge the batteries, it doesn't heat the water via an immersion heater or power a ring main arrangement. Comfortable boats though. 

It should be possible, on a well maintained boat with good battery systems, to run the heating without the engine (provided you've done a reasonable amount of running of course) 

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Sunday 24th September

I woke at the ridiculous time of 3.50 this morning and could get back to sleep.  Not sure why, the bed was very comfortable.  I guess I was a bit excited about crossing Breydon again.  It didn’t help that Seren woke at about 4.30.  It was still dark but some traffic had started up.  By then Graham was awake too, so we got up about 5, took Seren out for a short walk, had a cup of tea and read for a bit, and then spent some time discussing our plans for the day.  We decided to make for Oulton Broad as that would mean that we could travel to Beccles the following day and arrive around low tide as we intended getting under the old bridge. 

We had coffee and croissants about 6.30.  Very disappointed to find that the filter section of the caffetiere was broken and had to improvise by pouring the coffee through a kitchen towel lined colander.  By the time it dawned we could see it was going to be a fine morning.  The night had been surprisingly warm.  We hadn’t needed the heating on and I was half wishing I’d brought cooler nightwear.

Once the sun was properly up we set off upstream, turning just beyond the moored boats.  The sun’s glare on the river was pretty intense…good job the river twists and turns so much.  We chugged along nicely at 6mph and could see a couple of boats some way behind us going roughly the same pace.  Half way down to Yarmouth a private boat from Beccles came storming past all of us, creating a huge wake that was churning its way up the banks.  Honestly!

Graham took us through Yarmouth whilst I had a go at taking a video (which turned out rubbish – far too shaky).  I tried taking some photos of the different birds on Breydon Water and some of those turned out okayish.

 

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Oh drat...I accidentally posted the above post about Sunday whilst only half way through copying and pasting it and I ran out of editing time whilst trying to add the rest and some photos.

Here are photos that I was going to add to this first section:

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and the rest of the day went like this:

It was fairly busy on Breydon.

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At the far end of Breydon we turned left down the Waveney.  Most of the traffic seemed to be going the other way and we didn’t pass many other boats for the next stretch.

It continued to be beautifully sunny as we stopped off at Somerlayton BA moorings.  I had a brief chat with a couple on ‘Lightening’ who were on their first trip after joining that syndicate.  We then took Seren along the footpath that leads to the Herringfleet drainage mill.  She had a wonderful time as we were able to let her off the lead for a change (absolutely no risk of coming across any cars!). The mill was impressive, but it was a shame that a couple of its sails had broken off and were lying in the grass.

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We then went to the Duke’s Head for lunch.  When we arrived, we decided to sit in the garden (they do allow dogs inside though) and found the music blaring from loudspeakers really intrusive – far too loud.  I asked at the bar whether they could turn it down but the girl serving didn’t know how to operate the sound system, but said she would tell the manager when he returned.  Fair play, they did turn it down later on though it was still mostly the ‘thumpy’ type of music that we both find annoying. We both had burgers, which were obviously home-made (very large patty, at least an inch thick, which I found quite difficult to get my gnashers around) with crispy lettuce, tomato and bacon jam in the bun and a tomato relish and gherkins on the side and thick home-made chips.  All very nice.  My only quibble is that I’m not keen on the current craze of leaving the skin on chips. 

After lunch we continued up the Waveney to Oulton Broad.  I had phoned ahead and booked a stern-on mooring with shore power.  When we got there the reserved mooring was in a fairly tight space with boats moored stern-on opposite.  After one failed attempt at positioning the boat to reverse I decided to head instead for one of the side-on moorings on the other (outward) side of the pontoon.  I still hadn’t got the hang of the throttle when trying to manoeuvre at slow speed, so although the side-on mooring was more expensive I decided it would be foolish to continue trying to reverse into a tight space when I didn’t feel I could fully control the boat.

Since it was fairly early in the afternoon we thought we’d have a look at Lowestoft.  The Harbour Master was very good at telling us where we could catch a train and the alternative walking route.  The walk was interesting – quite an odd route across wasteland and behind boatyards. 

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There was a pleasant bit along a lakeside before we hit a public park and then we followed the road that passes Morrison’s (which I popped into for a few bits and bobs) and the railway station.  We strolled along the pier overlooking the harbour by the Yacht Club and stopped to watch a largish old sailing vessel being manoeuvred on ropes into the its berth.

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We were pretty tired by now, so took the train back.  We nearly messed up by buying tickets for Oulton Broad North before finding out that the train to that station would be an hour later than the one to Oulton Broad South.  Luckily the train guard/ticket collector said it would be okay to travel on those tickets. 

In the evening we just relaxed.  Watched Countyfile’s ‘one man and his dog’ competition filmed from Hampstead Heath (Wales won!) and had some pasta with a jar of puttanesca sauce and then turned in quite early I was a warm night, so again no need for heating.

11 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

Sunday 24th September

I woke at the ridiculous time of 3.50 this morning and could get back to sleep.  Not sure why, the bed was very comfortable.  I guess I was a bit excited about crossing Breydon again.  It didn’t help that Seren woke at about 4.30.  It was still dark but some traffic had started up.  By then Graham was awake too, so we got up about 5, took Seren out for a short walk, had a cup of tea and read for a bit, and then spent some time discussing our plans for the day.  We decided to make for Oulton Broad as that would mean that we could travel to Beccles the following day and arrive around low tide as we intended getting under the old bridge. 

We had coffee and croissants about 6.30.  Very disappointed to find that the filter section of the caffetiere was broken and had to improvise by pouring the coffee through a kitchen towel lined colander.  By the time it dawned we could see it was going to be a fine morning.  The night had been surprisingly warm.  We hadn’t needed the heating on and I was half wishing I’d brought cooler nightwear.

Once the sun was properly up we set off upstream, turning just beyond the moored boats.  The sun’s glare on the river was pretty intense…good job the river twists and turns so much.  We chugged along nicely at 6mph and could see a couple of boats some way behind us going roughly the same pace.  Half way down to Yarmouth a private boat from Beccles came storming past all of us, creating a huge wake that was churning its way up the banks.  Honestly!

Graham took us through Yarmouth whilst I had a go at taking a video (which turned out rubbish – far too shaky).  I tried taking some photos of the different birds on Breydon Water and some of those turned out okayish.

 

 

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Lovely photos. What a parade across Breydon. 

The boat you saw is Excelsior which you can read about here.

We saw it sailing off the coast that weekend while we were at the caravan. I got some photos but when the sun was shining the sails were down, when I saw it the next day the fog was rolling in.

 

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Monday 25th September

Didn’t wake until after 5 this morning, which seemed late in comparison to yesterday.  Graham and Seren were both asleep.  Seren didn’t wake until around 5.30 and Graham got up a short while later to take her for a walk in the Nicholas Everitt Park.

It was already getting light in the East, so I opened up the forward door and watched the dawn approach, taking photos now and again. 

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My camera is so light sensitive that the first photo appears much lighter than it actually was.   It was lovely seeing masses of seagulls head inland as the sky gradually got lighter.

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Dawn.

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We only had a light breakfast this morning, tea and porridge for Graham and cereal for me.  Shortly after 8 Graham went to pay our mooring fee and then we set off on our way to Beccles, still debating whether to stay overnight at the Yacht Station there or Geldeston or the Lido moorings.

Somewhere between the Waveney River Centre and North Cove I spotted a kingfisher, my first ever, so that was a bit of a thrill!  The river was very quiet, I don’t think we passed more than 10 boats the whole journey down to Beccles.  There were a couple of boats moored at North Cove, one at Worlingham Staithe and one at Aldeby Staithe.

There was plenty of room under the old Beccles bridge, but then we did arrive around low tide, which was lucky as Graham forgot to lower his make-shift flag pole (we’re flying the Ddraig-goch - Welsh flag -  again).  We continued up river at a very slow pace, enjoying the peace and quiet, as far as Geldeston and moored up against the dyke bank using our rond anchors, since the posts were pretty small. 

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Seren had a good run up and down the grassy bank off her lead and played chase with a passing Labrador.

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We then walked into the village.  It was only 11.30 so we had a walk through the village and back to while-away the time before the pub opened at noon.

We sat in the pub courtyard, but they were happy to have Seren inside too.  We very much enjoyed our lunch.  A very generous fish-platter for two, washed down with a pint of Ghostship (me) and a Bitburger 0.0% for Graham.  The platter had a crayfish and prawn cocktail on top of very fresh mixed leaves, cucumber and tomato, served in a deep glass, also rollmops, home-made smoked mackerel pate, poached salmon and smoked salmon, all served with toast and butter.  We couldn’t manage all the salmon, but Seren finished off the poached salmon and enjoyed it very much.  I didn’t give her the remaining piece of smoked salmon as I thought it would be too salty for her.

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After lunch we cruised slowly back down to Beccles...

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...and moored at the Lido pontoon moorings. 

The first day we had kept Seren off all furniture, but it was pretty obvious that she wanted to jump up to look out of the windows, so we decided it would be less hassle to cover the seat in front of the helm with a blanket and allow her to sit there.  She loved it.

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Once moored up at Beccles I walked up to Tesco and back, using the steep stairway that leads to the church, whilst Graham waited for the Lido caretaker to finish laying some concrete in some pot-holes and get the water hose out.  Once I’d returned to the boat we both went back to Tesco’s, having decided to buy ourselves a caffetiere as we were fed up of trying to sieve our coffee through kitchen paper.  We took the dog and our recycling rubbish with us and Graham wandered around the car park in search of the Tesco recycling facilities whilst I was shopping.  We were not impressed…you can recycle bottles and newspaper there but no card or other paper, nor tins or plastic. Bit useless really.

It was still fairly early when we got back to the boat. 

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I had a half-shower/half-bath (yes, this boat has the luxury of a proper bath, plus a normal domestic loo and generous size wash-basin) whilst the water was still hot.  There wasn’t anything we wanted to watch on TV so we just read.  Later on, I used the dongle I’d borrowed from my son to stream an old ‘Time Team’ episode on YouTube.  I've recently been working through the set of 'Time Teams' episodes on YouTube starting with series 1.  Am now on series 5. We weren’t very hungry this evening, and I didn’t feel much like cooking, so just had the remains of the quiche that we had Saturday, again with new potatoes and salad.

By 9pm I was falling asleep, so Graham took Seren out and we were all in bed by 9.30.  You can hear some noise in the distance from the Norwich to Lowestoft road from the Lido moorings, but I’m sure that it would be much louder at the Yacht Station.  There was a lot of light pollution though, with a big floodlight shining out all night over the pontoon.  I guess it’s reassuring though, as it’s a very quiet spot at night, especially if you are the only ones moored there, as we were.

I'm planning to add more photos than usual to this account, so I've resized them to a 1/4 of their original size in the hopes that I won't overdo it!  Here's an extra photo of the stretch up to Geldeston...so peaceful!

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Helen

 

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Tuesday 26th September

Another 5am wake up this morning, both of us waking before Seren.  She sleeps quite happily in her crate in the lounge area at night, with some blankets over the top and sides of her crate to keep out the light.  We lazed around in bed until she woke and started to whine, then Graham took her out.  When he came back I cooked bacon, egg, tomato and fried new potatoes for breakfast.  By the time we had washed up we thought the tide might have dropped enough to allow us to get back under the bridge.  It was now 7.30 and low tide wasn’t due until 11, but we were fine with quite a generous amount of clearance.  We were hoping to get as far down the Waveney as possible before the tide turned, low tide at Reedham being forecast for 9.30’ish. 

The journey down the Waveney was lovely.  It was so still for the first hour or so, with a mirror-like river.

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It was getting on for 10 by the time we were going along the New Cut and we didn’t think the tide had turned.  We started to lose some speed just as we were reaching the end of the New Cut, so guessed that must be the start of the incoming tide, and we speeded up again (without adjusting our revs) once we turned onto the Yare. 

It didn’t take long to reach the Loddon turn-off.  I took it easy up the Chet at the minimum speed possible, finally getting used to the throttle that I’ve been moaning about in previous instalments, though I still couldn’t go any slower than 3.4/3.5mph.  Only passed about four boats going the other way, one of which was ‘Ranworth Breeze’.

The Staithe at Loddon only had a couple of boats moored, so I had a hassle-free opportunity to do my first stern-on mooring without the aid of bow-thrusters, and it went fine.  :default_beerchug:Loddon is obviously my lucky place as I did my first ever stern-on mooring there (with the aid of bow thrusters) last year. 

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As we were passing the Pye’s Mill moorings we couldn’t help noticing a partially submerged boat called ‘Liberator’.  What a shame, it had obviously once been someone’s pride and joy.  We noticed later when we went for a walk that their patchwork quilt was still on the bed.  We did feel for them. 

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Once we were moored Graham went for a shower/bath, making the most of the lovely hot water.  We then went to The White Horse, Chedgrave for lunch.  The bar was really crowded when we got there, full of a party of retired gentlemen, but we had a warm welcome.  One of the woman serving apologised for the noise, assuring me that the party would be going through to the restaurant shortly, but I commented back that it was so nice to see a village pub so busy.  Yesterday we had found The Wherry at Geldeston a really lovely pub, but we were the only ones there apart from a rambler who just ordered a cup of tea.  Today we both had Open Steak Sandwiches, and enjoyed them very much.  The dish was medium-rare steak with enoki mushrooms and crumbled stilton on a bed of wilted spinach on onion sourdough bread and a side of chips (really nice home cooked chips with no peel on them!).  The service was really friendly.  We asked if we could have some extra mayo sachets, and instead the waitress brought us out a dish of home-made mayo which was delicious and really put the final touch on the meal.  Graham finished off with a Raspberry Eaton Mess which was brought with two spoons (without our asking).  I may have helped Graham out a bit, since it was such a generous serving. :default_biggrin: 

After lunch we went to Co-Op for a few bits and pieces, returned to the boat with them and then went back up the High Street and through the churchyard for a walk to Pye’s Mill and back. 

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Really warm and sunny this afternoon.  Tee-shirt weather.  When we got back we just chilled.  This evening we didn’t feel much like cooking (or eating) after our lovely lunch, so we just had some pasta again with jar of sauce.  Watched ‘Bake-Off’ and turned in early after Seren’s evening walk. 

 

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Wednesday 27th September

Woke later today – at the really late time of 6am!  Got up shortly after that and I took off the blinds and wiped down the windows while Graham took Seren out.  One thing we thought that we didn’t like about the boat the first day was having to put external blinds on the bow windows.  However, we are now thinking that they seem to cut down on the condensation on those windows, and so are probably a good thing.  Mind you, we hadn't had to put them on in the rain. 

By 7am we were ready to depart and did so as quietly as possible.  We kept our speed down below the speed limit, partly because it was so misty. 

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It didn’t help that the sloping windows to the fore of the boat kept misting up both inside and out.  Graham ended up taking her down the Chet, the Yare and across Breydon as he was tall enough to stick his head above the roof line to see out. This one is taken later when we were on our way down the Yare.  

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Anyway, it gave me the opportunity to stand on the side of the boat and take lots of photos of the misty landscape and the sun climbing above the mist.

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We struck lucky as we passed under the Reedham Swing Bridge, with a train passing over whilst we passed under.  I'm not a train nut like my cousin, but do have a soft spot for them as my Dad was a train driver (don't remember Dad as he died when I was a baby and so have slightly idolised him). 

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It was still pretty misty when we first turned onto the Yare but it had cleared by the time we got to Breydon.  I took the opportunity to take more photos of birds, this time with my second camera that has a closer zoom (which had been out of battery going over on Sunday due my having used it to video).  It's pretty difficult trying to capture birds on a close zoom whilst chugging along and hanging on to the side of the boat though!  This was my best attempt, but I had to delete nearly all the shots I took.

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Unfortunately, we slightly mistimed things and ended up going through the Yarmouth bridges about quarter of an hour before the forecast slack water time, so we ended up chugging up the Bure against the last of the outgoing tide.  It wasn’t very fierce fortunately, we kept our revs down as far as was reasonable and ended up taking nearly twice as long to get to Stracey Arms as the journey down on Sunday, so that can't have done much for our fuel usage!  Stopped off at Stracey Arms to make a sandwich (pastrami with tomato, gherkin and mayo on Roys ‘Norfolk Crunch’ bread).  I was a bit startled whilst we were there.  I was busy tidying up stuff on the boat and when I raised my head to look up this was not far from our bows.

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At least we could be confident that he knew what he was doing!  By the time we’d finished our lunch we could see that the tide had slackened off but not turned.  We headed off again up the Bure and then the Ant making for Dilham, which we reached around 4pm.  We knew we were chancing it by getting there fairly late in the afternoon and were actively looking out for alternative moorings on the way.  But we struck lucky!  There were two boats of a similar size to ours there, but room for one other just around the bend, next to an electric post.  A small area of the key heading on the corner was taped off as the wood was rotten (hope they fix that!). 

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I did find the stretch from the Stalham turn-off to Wayford Bridge slightly tedious, even though it’s so beautiful.  As I've mentioned before, his boat doesn’t want to go any slower than about 3.4mph (judging by the GPS), try to go any slower and you just end up in neutral and drifting all over the place.  A private boat turned up river from Stalham just before I got to the turn and proceeded up river just slightly slower than my minimum speed.  I don’t mind going slow, and had intended to, especially on such a lovely quiet section, but it’s a bit of a pain to have to try to fall back now and again by going into reverse.  We saw some more kingfishers and a small snake swimming in the river though, which more than made up for the slight frustration.

By the way, I like the look of Hunsford Mill. (Yes, I know it’s a fraught subject!) 

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It’s certainly striking, but at least its an improvement on the’ cottage’ with faux shutters that was pictured in the 60s/70s.  Given I was a teenager in the ‘70s why do I find a lot about that decade a bit naff now?

We had another bonus at Dilham.  More than £1 credit on the electric post!  Why on earth did I buy £5 of electric cards in April?  I haven’t used one yet! 

The weather today has been very mild again, alternating sunny/cloudy spells with a fresh breeze on the lower Bure but not too windy. 

Once moored we took Seren for a walk along the lane opposite the Staithe then turned right, down Broad Fen Lane and then turned left onto a couple of footpaths back to the village.  We then walked to the Cross Keys pub and both had Rib-Eye Steaks for our dinner.  Very friendly welcome at the pub and a nice pint of Ghostship.  Again though, we were the only ones there (okay, it was early).  We do worry about the sustainability of some of these village pubs, whose landlords are obviously doing all they can to attract local custom. 

We were back at the boat by about 7pm.  Watched some telly but by 9 we were both nodding off, so decided to call it a night. 

 

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