Carried Away By A Moonlight Shadow...

[Broads01]

I completely agree about the side-on issue, no excuse for it. If I'd been the Broom arriving I'd have asked them to move.

[addicted]

We have arrived at Loddon and finding it appearing to be full at first glance realised with a little shove sideways we could squeeze in so we asked and it was done with no fuss

 

Carole

[YnysMon]

13 hours ago, Broads01 said:

I completely agree about the side-on issue, no excuse for it. If I'd been the Broom arriving I'd have asked them to move.

I don't think the owner of the boat moored side-on was on board at the time that the Brooms boat arrived. There wasn't any sign of anyone they might have asked anyway.

[YnysMon]

Thursday 11th November

Another early morning start. Although we weren’t in a particular hurry, we thought it would be a good idea to get past the BA dredging equipment before they started work at 8am, so we set off again shortly after 6.30 as it was getting light. There was a lot of mist rising in the fields either side the river, so it was a lovely atmospheric morning and the sunrise was special too.

When we got on the river Yare it was very misty, so we left our nav lights on. Not that we met anything else on the river until well past 9. It continued pretty misty until we passed Langley Dyke, after the sun had risen out of the bank of cloud on the horizon. The mist on the river along the Cantley stretch had been particularly thick.

Not much else to report from this morning. We took things at a fairly slow pace as the tide was against us and we weren’t in a hurry.

We got to Norwich late morning, mooring just beyond the railings of the Yacht Station.

Graham stayed with the boat as he didn’t want to leave Seren onboard by herself. He also wanted to give the window sill another coat of varnish and have a go at clearing some moss that was growing around Moonlight Shadow’s windows externally. Harry wanted to visit a Japanese restaurant that he’d read about, so we headed in that direction. We were a bit too early though, so first wandered around Tombland and down Elm Hill.

We had a lovely meal at Shiki. I had a udon noodle and seafood stir-fry. Harry had their sashimi and sushi platter.

After our meal I headed off across the river a short way up Magdalene Street to a dress fabrics shop (a very good one, with a large selection of lovely fabrics) whilst Harry wandered back up Elm Hill to visit a second-hand bookshop that he’s spotted and a board games store. I got back to the boat having bought some fabric to make myself some smarter joggers for the next trip on MS and Harry returned with a couple of old books and a card game.

We got back to the boat early afternoon and then set off back downriver, heading for Bramerton Common.

There was only one other boat and a few fishermen when we got there, so no trouble mooring.

This evening we had Lidl quiche with new pots and salad. Played a few games afterward, having run out of Black Books episodes and not being in the mood to start watching a film. Another early night.

[YnysMon]

Friday 12th November

The last day (as always, sob!).

We got up reasonably early this morning but rather than rushing away to Brundall we stayed on the mooring and started packing. It had occurred to me that, as Paul at Swancraft been so obliging with the gas, it would be good to spend our money on fuel and pump-outs at Swancraft rather than Brooms. I wanted to phone beforehand though to check that would be okay, so we didn’t set off from Bramerton until getting on for 10. We made our way to Swancraft, got our gas, pump-outs and fuel before making our way to our mooring in Brooms.

As we passed the quay heading where Moonlight Shadow's mooring used to be, we saw the first of Brooms houseboats had been put in position. 

We started packing. We did have enough food on board to make a brunch. However, we fancied treating ourselves to make it feel like we were still on holiday, despite having to clean the boat. We drove to The Lion at Thurne, which isn’t that far from Brundall by road and had a lovely meal. I had sea bass on crushed new potatoes with samphire and a white wine sauce, Harry had a herb encrusted cod from the specials menu and Graham had their vegetarian pie of the day with chips and veg.

After our meal we couldn't help checking out Thurne Dyke.

The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and it was just after 5 by the time we left the boat. We had a good journey back without any delays.

Unfortunately, as the day wore on, I wasn feeling increasingly ropey. Harry had a cold earlier in the week and was now getting over it, and I had now caught it. I felt very under the weather all weekend and Monday, and am only now starting to feel better (following Tuesday). Maybe the cold hit me so much as it’s the first I’ve had since pre-Covid days.

Still, can’t complain, I’d rather have that cold after the holiday that during it. We had a great time, did as much cruising as we’d hoped we would and the weather was pretty kind to us on the whole. A few gloomy days, but lots of gloriously sunny ones too.

[Mouldy]

It’s good having two weeks.  It gives you time to unwind and get into the right mindset to enjoy your holiday (I find).

Looking at that ‘floating apartment’ (houseboat), I have to wonder why it has windows down the sides.  I remember looking at the plans for their placement and thinking a holiday on one of those would be like being jammed in at Ranworth.

Ive just referred back to the planning application and it was withdrawn by Broom a couple of months ago, so I’m not actually sure why that houseboat is there:

https://planning.broads-authority.gov.uk/PublicAccessDocs/planningdocs.aspx?appType=Development Control&appNumber=BA/2021/0209/FUL

[SwanR]

Thank you for sharing your holiday with such a lovely tale and wonderful pictures. It has made me start thinking about the southern rivers again!

[YnysMon]

42 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Ive just referred back to the planning application and it was withdrawn by Broom a couple of months ago, so I’m not actually sure why that houseboat is there:

I must say I was surprised. I didn’t know about the withdrawn application though.

 

44 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

It’s good having two weeks.

It certainly is. We completely chilled, during the second week especially when we stopped worrying so much about Graham’s Dad. 

[YnysMon]

8 minutes ago, SwanR said:

It has made me start thinking about the southern rivers again!

Go for it Jean! We’ve really fallen in love the south rivers.

[Lulu]

A lovely and really interesting write up.   I dont think I will ever get used to how close places are by road in comparison with travelling by river. My map of Norfolk in my head is the river one, not the road version! 

I don’t think we will get the opportunity for a two week break until we retire unfortunately.  This year is going to be even worse for holiday as my new job doesnt give much and we really want to use some to see my daughter and granddaughter in Scotland.  

[YnysMon]

36 minutes ago, Lulu said:

 This year is going to be even worse for holiday as my new job doesnt give much a

That’s a real shame. I’ve been very lucky at the OU to have had 33 per year plus a closure week at Christmas.

[SwanR]

2 hours ago, YnysMon said:

I’ve been very lucky at the OU to have had 33 per year plus a closure week at Christmas.

In my experience universities are notoriously generous with annual leave. 

[Broads01]

Thanks for the write up and photos, Helen, very enjoyable. 

[BroadAmbition]

Cracking write up, great photo's as per the norm.  Thanks for sharing

Griff

[YnysMon]

THE TALE OF TRIP 9

This is just a long-winded version of the account I've already posted in the 'Live' version of this thread, with more photos of course.

 

Saturday 12th February 

A very special day today. Not only were we starting our 9th trip on Moonlight Shadow, but it was also the 45th anniversary since we started dating. For us, the 12th of February has always been far more significant than Valentine’s day. 

We started the day at a fairly leisurely pace, and despite having mostly packed the car yesterday, didn’t start off until after 9.30. We didn’t hurry either, as we’ve found that pootling along at roughly 60mph saves a lot of fuel. The traffic was pretty light this morning and we made fairly good time. As we were approaching Norwich, we came up with a plan of taking Seren for a run somewhere before doing our food shop. I’d read that the grounds of the UEA Campus are really good for dog walking, and knew roughly where it was, so rather than turning east onto the A47 we turned north and came off the next junction which was signposted for UEA. 

Seren had a great time, though she tried very hard to lose her ball in the lake and rougher ground.  

After our walk we went back to the A47, as we thought that would be a quicker route to Thorpe St Andrew than the route our satnav was trying to take us on (into Norwich). Last time we visited (November) we had noticed that a new Lidl had opened just off the distributor road and, as we had plenty of time, we thought we’d do most of our shop there and then go to Sainsbury’s for any items we couldn’t get in Lidl. Now that Graham isn’t eating meat, it’s good to have more choice of vegetarian/vegan alternatives. 

As I mentioned on my ‘live’ thread, we were surprised at how low the river level was when we got to the boat. Getting on and off was very difficult and getting Seren on board even more so. It's lucky that we didn't have Graham's Dad with us this time. We'd never have got him on board.

Although it was a lovely sunny afternoon, the wind was starting to gust quite strongly, so we decided we would stay on our home mooring tonight. It took us a while to unpack and sort everything out anyway. Seren was quite nervous at the noise of the bow slap. 

I had planned to do a cold fish platter with salad this evening but, as the sun started setting we started to feel quite chilly, so our meal plans changed to a more robust warming meal. Haggis with neeps and tatties! 

There wasn’t anything we wanted to watch on telly, so we just had a couple of games of dominoes and had an early'ish night. We were planning to get up early the next day anyway. 

[YnysMon]

Sunday 13th February 

I woke up ridiculously early this morning, as I normally do the first few days when we are on the Broads. It was only just after 4.30. I did some of an iPad jigsaw in bed. It was lovely and cosy in the bow cabin with our little radiator, so cosy that I put my electric under-blanket off.  

I woke Graham around 6.30 and we got ready to set off just after 7, pretty much at dawn really, though the sky was overcast.

We chugged slowly downriver against the tide, having the river pretty much to ourselves, though we did pass one boat just before the Hardley Cross moorings.

Seren gets bored when the river is quiet.

Nothing apart from the odd swan, marsh harrier and flocks of birds on the wing.

We eventually moored up mid-morning at Berney Arms and took Seren for a walk along the Wherryman’s Way toward Breydon Water. The old Berney Arms looks very run down, worse than when we last walked past in November 2000. It’s a shame. 

Having posted on my ‘live’ thread that we were intending to cross Breydon Water, Norfolk Nog posted a reply indicating that the Nogs, who had hired Humber Bridge this week, were intending to do the same. As it happened, Graham and I had just cast off and were making our way upriver to get past the posts before turning when we spotted Humber Bridge making her way downriver. So, we ended up following Humber Bridge slowly across Breydon and up the first stretch of the Bure.

Actually, I found it reassuring to be following another boat, as the wind was strong (as forecast) with gusts of just over 40mph. I needn’t have worried though. We had timed our Breydon crossing before slack water, so the tide was still flowing out and, as the wind was behind us, the water was pretty flat. As Mr Nog said…’like a mill pond’.  

Crossing Braydon.

We kept going at a very leisurely pace as we didn’t want to push our brand new engine too much against the ebbing current. Due to the way the Bure twists and turns so much the wind was against us some of the time and that made a real difference to our speed. I had the Aweigh app going and could see that we were mostly going along at around 4.5mph, though we did dip below 4mph on the more southerly facing stretches. 

It was good to see that the cap of the Stracey Arms mill has been restored. It was on the ground last time we passed.

As we were making our way up the Bure we were debating whether to continue on to somewhere like Ranworth, Irstead or Neatishead, as it would have been good to find a more sheltered mooring. However, it was already 4pm or so by the time we got to Stokesby, so it would have been getting dark by the time we got to those places. I didn’t fancy doing a night nav on a rainy night, nor trying to moor up in the dark in such windy conditions.  

I had assumed that by now the tidal flow would have turned (we had definitely speeded up a bit), so went upriver a short way to turn before approaching the Stokesby moorings. I should have checked properly, though I think it was more the wind than the tide that was the problem. It’s a good job there wasn’t anyone else moored on the Stokesby BA moorings (apart from a privateer tucked in at the downriver corner), as the wind pushed me toward the bank more quickly then expected. Still, apart from the boat not behaving quite as I expected, we moored up without any problems. I only realised that the flow was still downriver when I fed a couple of swans whilst Graham was sorting out the ropes and saw that the swan food was drifting downriver. 

Once we’d hooked up to the electric and got the boat all toasty, I made us a salad with smoked mackerel and rollmops and some freshly baked crusty rolls (the type you buy part-baked). After dinner we watched the Great Pottery Throw Down and then prepared for an early night. 

Stokesby definitely wasn’t the most sheltered mooring this evening, being exposed to the south. The bow-slap was awful, and we seriously considered rearranging all our stuff to sleep in the aft cabin instead of the bow. That would have been a lot of bother as we generally just dump all our stuff in the aft cabin when there are just the two of us on board, never mind having to re-make the beds, so in the end we slept in the bow cabin as usual. It wasn’t too bad, and we both got to sleep. I woke once in the early hours, and the wind had died down by then. 

[Mouldy]

I managed to cock up mooring at Stokesby last September (I think).  The tide appeared to be (and should have been) rising, but when I tried to moor into the current it was clearly still falling.  I had to abort the attempt, turn and come in the right way.  I did feel a bit of a plum!!

[SwanR]

Great start to your official tale Helen. Always love seeing your photos of Seren looking out of the front. 

[YnysMon]

Monday 14th February 

I woke fairly early again. The wind had eased during the night, so we had a good night’s sleep on the whole. It got going again toward dawn though.  

We set off early again, around 7.15, and made our way up the Bure. Mr and Mrs Nog had obviously set off early too, as there was no sign of Humber Bridge outside the Acle Bridge Inn.

We didn’t see much other traffic on the river initially but saw several boats as the day progressed. It looked like most of the northern boat yards had at least one boat out, Richardson’s being the most numerous, we saw about four or five of their boats.  

We had been tempted at the thought of trying for a mooring on the staithe at Horning but got lured up the Ant instead.

No problems getting under Ludham Bridge, the marker showed we had over 8’.

Crossing Barton Broad.

As we wanted somewhere sheltered tonight, we made our way to Neatishead, which was deserted apart from a liveaboard's yacht and a couple of fishermen. However, after we’d moored up we realised that we should have stopped off somewhere for water first, as the hoses had been removed and the water turned off. As we hadn’t filled up since Saturday, we thought we ought to fill up today, so we set off again in search of water. 

First we tried Barton Turf staithe, but that was in the same state water wise, though much better underfoot (Neatishead looked very muddy) with fresh looking bark chippings. We then went to Sutton Staithe, where we got water, but again it was muddy, worse than Neatishead and rather dangerously so I thought, as the muddy grass sloped down slightly toward the water. Graham almost skidded down the slope.

The combination of the mud and the noise from the nearby main road persuaded us to look elsewhere for our mooring. It was not yet mid-day, so we had plenty of time to find another mooring. Initially we thought to return to Neatishead, but before reaching Barton Broad the boat that had been moored at Irstead when we came upriver passed us, so we decided to try for Irstead instead.

Returning across Barton Broad.

When we got there, a boat was moored next to the electric post, but we moored on the other section. Fortunately, we have an extension lead for the shore power line, so we were able to plug into the electric post from where we were. 

Lunch today was the haggis, neeps and tatties that we had left over from Saturday’s evening meal. It tasted just as good heated up in the microwave.  

After that I visited the church which is well worth a visit and has a good selection of visitor guides. It has several interesting features including medieval font and (defaced - literally) rood screen.

 

Graham then tried to take Seren for a walk, but she absolutely refused to go along the lane that leads from the staithe. She could hear the bang of bird scarers in the distance, and they freak her out.  

So, we had a quiet, uneventful afternoon. In the evening we listened to a couple of old murder mysteries on BBC4 extra and had another early night after a light supper of pasta with pesto.  

[YnysMon]

12 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

I managed to cock up mooring at Stokesby last September (I think).  The tide appeared to be (and should have been) rising, but when I tried to moor into the current it was clearly still falling.  I had to abort the attempt, turn and come in the right way.  I did feel a bit of a plum!!

I think the problem with Stokesby, and other places that are fairly close to Gt Yarmouth, is that the water on the surface continues to flow out for quite a while after low water. We observed that when we moored overnight at Polkey's Mill last year. The water was still streaming past toward Yarmouth even though we could see that the boat was clearing rising relatively fast against the quay heading. 

[YnysMon]

Tuesday 15th February 

I slept later this morning, but still woke in time to catch a beautiful sunrise.

We knew that rain was forecast for later and were getting concerned at the weather forecast for later in the week, promising much stronger winds. That prompted us to change our plans and return south today instead of tomorrow.

We left Irstead shortly after sunrise and had a beautiful cruise down the Ant in the early morning sunshine. By the time we reached Ludham Bridge it was clouding over though.  

I love early morning cruises. I seem to spot a lot more wildlife than other times of the day. An otter swam in front of the boat just before the bend in the river blow Irstead, and shortly after I spotted a couple of kingfishers. No photos of the kingfishers, but I did get a couple of lovely ones of a swan.

It started clouding over by the time we got to How Hill. It was worth getting up early to catch a glimpse of sunshine. 

On the whole we didn't have problems with condensation on this trip. Our little fan blower did come in handy this morning though.

At 8am, just after we’d passed How Hill, Graham put the radio on so that we could listen to one of the classic Goon Show’s - ‘The Affair of the Lone Banana’. I'd forgotten how funny the Goons were. (Must remember to put on the radio next week Tuesday 8am for the next episode!) 

It was getting quite gloomy looking by the time we turned onto the Bure.

As low water at Great Yarmouth wasn’t until around 3.30pm, we only went as far as Acle this morning.

We hoped to give Seren a walk along the riverbank before the promised rain came along. To start with Seren was having a great time, chasing after her ball and running around like a mad thing, but then another bird scarer went off in the distance and she started to run back toward the boat. Luckily, she’s well trained enough now to respond when we call her, so stopped running, but we couldn’t persuade her to go any further along the path. We went back to the boat, having had a rather short walk (we could do with the exercise too). Shortly after it started raining, so we would have got wet if we’d persisted with our walk.  

By the way, there is no water available at Acle at present.

I made us a brunch: sausage, bacon (vegan versions for Graham), mushrooms, fried potatoes, scrambled egg and tomato. After that we whiled away the next hour or so reading/doing jigsaw. We set off just after 1.30pm, initially taking things very slowly, or as slow as we could with the outgoing tide behind us (about 4mph). The weather was miserable; it was still raining. We went past Six Mile House mill around 2.30pm, so that seemed about right to get to Yarmouth for 3.30, so I speeded up a bit to just under 6mph.  

The advance bridge marker at Yarmouth was just over 10’. The tide was still flowing out quite strongly, but that’s what we expected, and not a problem, especially with the Yacht Station being closed.  

As expected, Breydon Water was very flat as the tide was still flowing out and the wind behind it. It meant for a slow Breydon crossing, as we were trying to take care of our new engine. It had only done about 26 hours or so before we took over, as we were only the third set of syndicate members to use it. This trip was the first time the new engine had crossed there and back over Breydon certainly.

We could see several murmurations in the sky to the south of us. 

We were fairly slow going up the Yare to start with too, about 4mph, but the boat speeded up a bit before we got to Reedham without us increasing our revs. We passed Polkey’s Mill around sunset.

By the time we got to Reedham the light was failing. The bridge is very well it though.

It was properly dark by the time we moored up for the night at Hardley Mill pontoon. Luckily the tide hadn’t really turned properly, so we were able to come in to moor with the bright lights of Cantley sugar factory behind us. They really don’t help night vision! Before settling down for the night we turned the boat on her ropes as we were expecting a south westerly wind to pick up before the morning and we wanted to avoid bow slap. 

We had another ‘easy’ dinner this evening. Some daal with hardboiled eggs and rice. We listened to another episode of a Peter Whimsey mystery on the radio. 

[YnysMon]

Wednesday 16th February 

Another beautiful sunrise this morning.

Moonlight Shadow's shadow.

We started off from Hardley Mill just before 8am this morning ono our way back to Brundall.

The wind was due to strengthen from late morning onwards and we wanted to be re-fuelled and have a water top-up before then so that we could hunker down on our mooring for the next few days (the water tap near our mooring is always turned off in the winter months).

As we were so early, and the Brooms fuel kiosk doesn't open until 10am, we took a detour around Rockland Broad.

We still arrived at Brundall far too early. That wasn't a problem though, we just moored up in front of the fuel kiosk and waited. The loo had been a bit smelly on this trip, so we had a pump-out too. I don’t know whether it was down to the inexperience of the young lad who did the pump-out, but the loo was still smelly later on that day. 

Getting into our mooring proved interesting. I thought it was helpful that the wind was blowing up the dyke as it we are moored in a corner, so provided the wind didn’t blow us on to Lightening’s bow (she’s moored just around the corner from us) I thought the wind would help us into our spot. That didn’t quite work out, as I hadn’t considered eddies. The wind was rebounding off the shed that is alongside our mooring, pushing the boat off. Not a huge problem. I just moved out slightly to reposition the boat before reversing again. 

Graham had not been feeling at all well this morning. He had stomach cramps. Once Moonlight Shadow was safely moored, I made him some porridge. I don’t think it had helped that he hadn’t eaten anything yet. We had planned to go out somewhere in the car this afternoon, but Graham just wanted to rest, so I took a trip into Norwich by train. A return ticket cost £4, which I thought wasn’t too bad, and it’s really handy having the train station so close to Brooms. 

Over the past few months I have become a bit obsessed with sewing, although I'm fairly new to it. My grandmother was a seamstress and my mother made a lot of my clothes. I had some really posh suits and dresses when I was younger that she made for me. However, I haven’t done much sewing myself apart from a couple of items that I made as a teenager. During 2020 I tried making a few items, with mixed success, and I bought an overlocker. The overlocker stayed in its box for about six months whilst I plucked up the courage to actually use it. Unlike a sewing machine it has four spools of thread that you have to meticulously thread through a complicated series of loops etc. If you get one stop wrong the thread breaks and you have to start again. When I did get it out of the box it took me quite a while to get to grips with it, in fact I got very frustrated with it! Now that I have finally mastered it, I love it. Last month I used the overlocker to make myself a pair of leggings, a sweatshirt, a jersey dress, a couple of t-shirts, and a pair of joggers. I also used my sewing machine to make a pair of trousers and a cotton top for the summer.  

So why this detour into sewing matters? Well, my reason for going into Norwich was a quest for more fabric (though to be honest, I’ve already amassed a too-large stash of fabric). I first made my way to the market, as I knew there was a fabric stall there. I didn’t spend much time there though as they didn’t have that much of a selection. Actually, I felt quite uncomfortable being in the market. I haven’t been anywhere where I’ve had to pass so close to other people for the past two years, and it made me feel quite uneasy. Before I left the market, I got a warm chicken and chorizo empanada from one of the stalls and ate it as I walked toward Tombland, where I found a bench in an area that wasn’t crowded with people. I then walked down toward the hill, crossed the river and found another fabric shop on Magdalene St. This one was really well-stocked, and I came away with some lightweight cotton canvas intended for a summer pair of trousers for Graham, some blue ribbing fabric suitable for making cuffs and waistband for a sweatshirt and a metre of an orange stripy viscose jersey fabric that was on sale at £5 per metre, which I thought would make a nice t-shirt.

I walked back to the station along the river and past the Yacht Station. Unfortunately, I missed one train by just 5 minutes and had to wait another 45 minutes for the next one that stopped at Brundall.  Even so, it was only around 4pm when I got back to the boat. I was relieved to get back as I had felt quite uncomfortable on the train too. It was crammed with families with young children, maybe because it’s half-term, with very few people wearing masks. 

Graham had managed to eat some crumpets whilst I was in Norwich and we thought that something like a macaroni cheese would be a good option for dinner as his stomach still didn’t feel right, so I popped up to one of Brundall’s Co-ops to get some more supplies for dinner. I was longer making dinner than usual as I busy making the sauce for the macaroni cheese using the microwave and didn’t notice that the pan of water that I had put on the hob wasn’t coming up to the boil as the gas had run out in one cylinder. 

We had another quiet night. Graham went to bed really early whilst I stayed up to watch an episode of ‘Great British Menu’. However, the TV signal kept breaking up and I ended up watching it on my iPad instead, using the BBC iPlayer app. Brooms changed the Wi-Fi for berth holders last week and the new Wi-Fi has a much stronger signal.  

[Lulu]

We also got caught out at Stokesby. Absolutely convinced on which way the tide was going but then rapidly realised it wasn’t doing what we thought it should be doing. We will certainly be on guard next time.  Useful to know about the water at Acle as we usually fill up there. 

[ranworthbreeze]

5 minutes ago, Lulu said:

We also got caught out at Stokesby. Absolutely convinced on which way the tide was going but then rapidly realised it wasn’t doing what we thought it should be doing. We will certainly be on guard next time.  Useful to know about the water at Acle as we usually fill up there. 

There seems to be a bit of a whirlpool at the Stokesby moorings and outside of the pub.

[Mouldy]

6 minutes ago, Lulu said:

 . . . . . . . .  Useful to know about the water at Acle as we usually fill up there. 

There used to be two hoses in what was Horizon Crafts basin.  We’re they missing too?  The one by the pump out shed on the main river has been absent for ages.