Springer’s Retreat On The Rivers

[kpnut]

Back at the boat Judith fancied a swim do she and Finlay played about in the lovely clear water for a bit before some salad for dinner. Our next destination was the main moorings by the Rising Sun, only a few boats there and lovely sunshine which very dramatically turned into an extremely heavy bout of rain for half an hour just after we’d set off for Belaugh. 

[kpnut]

Another walk at Belaugh in the bright sun that emerged after the rain. Up to the church, with a very interesting church organ, built by the rector of the time from secondhand materials, and a screen defaced by one of Oliver Cromwell supporters, none other than the man who lived at Hautbois Hall at the time. Belaugh is a tiny place, unusual on the Broads as it’s in a steep hill. There’s a lovely ‘there and back’ walk by turning left from the mooring and just following first lane, then path through meadows to the Anchor moorings bend at Coltishall.

Cows lying in the field took no notice of us with the dog, must be very contented with their lot! The trip round the village with church and along the walk and back was 1.5 miles, took an hour total. And now, after tea of homemade cottage pie, brought from home, spinach and spring cabbage off the allotments, it’s suddenly tipping down with rain again following a large peal of thunder. Funny day, weather-wise but it’s giving the boat a good watertight test! Just hope the boat passes!!!

[Bluebell]

13 hours ago, Mouldy said:

Ouch!!  Open wallet surgery for another case of B.O.A.T!  It would probably be worth getting your heater and controls checked.  New ones cost a fortune, unless you go down the Chinese route.  I know a couple of folk who’ve had them, one without issues and the other who did.  Planar (Autoterm) is another manufacturer of mid priced heaters, but as they’re made in Russia, spares availability may become problematic in view of the situation in Ukraine.  There’s also MV (Mikuni) to consider, also cheaper than Webasto or Eberspacher.

Hopefully, yours is repairable, but if it’s not, you may need an anaesthetic prior to opening your handbag!!

We fitted one last year and have been very pleased with it. Regarding future supplies of spares etc, it seems production has now been moved to outside of Russia. The UK agent has around 12-24 months worth of spares already in the UK and details can be found on their website.

[YnysMon]

More lovely walks and recipes too. Bliss! We have done part of the walk along the upper Bure towards Aylsham but didn’t get that far. Although someone had cut back the growth of nettles, brambles etc it was still fairly overgrown. I think we did it in Autumn though. 

That breakfast yogurt with paprika in it sounds intriguing.

Was the river very cold for swimming? 

[kpnut]

Judith said it wasn’t as cold as she expected. I’m going to give it a go sometime, but only up there where it seems very safe to be honest. 
I would think the watermeadow part of that walk would get quite overgrown as nothing was there grazing it down. But being a public footpath, it should theoretically be kept passable by the county council. 
The breakfast recipe is one I use to keep off carbs. I usually have that or a couple of boiled eggs, but this week we’re treating ourselves to a high protein fry up as well!

[YnysMon]

Loved the detail about the organ in Belaugh church. I visited the church not long after completing an art history course with the OU, so I was principally interested in the rood screen. My son Harry came along with me for a day trip by car visiting various Norfolk Churches that have rood screens. It’s quite a while ago now, but I think we visited Worstead, Catfield, Tunstead and Barton Turf churches, as well as Belaugh. Wish I’d paid more attention to the organ. I play the organ on Sundays at our local church (not that well!), so Belaugh is now on our list for a return visit.

By the way, Barton Turf has the most amazing rood screen. We’ll worth the walk from Neatishead. I can never decide which is best, Ranworth or Barton Turf. 

[SwanR]

What a wonderful read. That weather was certainly changeable yesterday. Torrential rain just as the children were going home from school. And then again during the evening as you described. 

Have a lovely day wherever it takes you. 😎

[kpnut]

The organ pipes were salvaged from Norwich cathedral where the rector’s father was organist. I think it said 1886 but I might be wrong. 
I used to play the organ at my local church. I refused to play for weddings though in case I messed the entrance and exit pieces up. I had lessons from when I was about 20 when my feet could barely reach the pedals. I had to perch right on the edge of the bench and was in constant danger of slipping off as I moved my feet up and down the pedals. 
 

Looks like it might be a more settled day. The sun is streaming in at the moment. We’re heading back through the bridge mid afternoon and have no plans after that for the remainder of the trip. 

 

[kpnut]

1 minute ago, SwanR said:

Torrential rain just as the children were going home from school

When I used to be childminding and then teaching, you could guarantee if it was going to rain, it’d start just at pickup time!

[YnysMon]

3 hours ago, kpnut said:

I refused to play for weddings though in case I messed the entrance and exit pieces up.

This did make me chuckle. I started organ lessons when I was 16 and started playing in the Parish church of St Cybi, Holyhead about the same time. (I was hopeless to start with, but they were desperate as, at that time not only were they short of organists, but all the services in that church were conducted in Welsh, which narrowed down the selection somewhat.) I also played at weddings, but was pretty much terrified that I would mess up. To make things worse, for one of the first weddings that I played at, the bride asked for (Elvis') 'When I fall in love' to be played for her entrance. Not a good choice for walking up the aisle, and not really suitable for the organ! I really struggled with it anyway.

Luckily for me, by the time Graham and I got married there was a very, very good organist playing at the largest English speaking church in Holyhead, so good that I was able to ask him to play Widor's Toccata for our exit (for those not in the know, it's very demanding to play). Mind you, Graham did comment on our way out that it reminded him of a fairground Wurlitzer.

I don't play for weddings nowadays. They are either on a weekday, when I'm working anyway, or Saturdays, and that just takes too much time out of my weekend. 

 

[CambridgeCabby]

13 hours ago, YnysMon said:

Loved the detail about the organ in Belaugh church. I visited the church not long after completing an art history course with the OU, so I was principally interested in the rood screen. My son Harry came along with me for a day trip by car visiting various Norfolk Churches that have rood screens. It’s quite a while ago now, but I think we visited Worstead, Catfield, Tunstead and Barton Turf churches, as well as Belaugh. Wish I’d paid more attention to the organ. I play the organ on Sundays at our local church (not that well!), so Belaugh is now on our list for a return visit.

By the way, Barton Turf has the most amazing rood screen. We’ll worth the walk from Neatishead. I can never decide which is best, Ranworth or Barton Turf. 

Don’t forget to visit St Helen’s at Ranworth , there too you will find a spectacular rood screen 

[kpnut]

And I think Irstead has one too with yet more scrubbed out faces. When I went in there once and stopped in the doorway cos I had the dog, the lady doing the flower arranging spotted me and said ‘bring him in, him upstairs wont mind’. 
I had widows toccata to walk out to as wellHelen. I love your comment about the Wurlitzer, he’s right, it does. 

[YnysMon]

2 hours ago, CambridgeCabby said:

Don’t forget to visit St Helen’s at Ranworth , there too you will find a spectacular rood screen 

Been there lots of times - spectacular!

[Guest]

6 hours ago, kpnut said:

We’re heading back through the bridge mid afternoon and have no plans after that for the remainder of the trip

You're not expecting the bridge passage to go well then? 

[kpnut]

LOL. We did giggle at that, but don’t tempt fate!!!

About to set off from the viaduct moorings to go through in a few minutes. It’s still incredibly quiet on the river. Maybe a different story downstream of the bridge. 

[petersjoy]

Is this you i just caught.

 

[kpnut]

Yep, all safe and sound. We were just reversing in to let the pilot off. He talked me through how to line her up straight when coming through from the other side. Would have been a perfect example if a day boat hadn’t decided to take its time to come through and wave to the pilot, who was trying to keep where he wanted to be while I videoed. Anyway, it taught me you don’t have to panic if something crops up unexpectedly. 
Thanks for the photo, much appreciated. 
 

Our quiet day today. After breakfast as yesterday, we bimbled down in the sun from Belaugh to Hoveton viaduct moorings. Finlay met a gigantic Great Dane, I don’t think he could quite understand why all this dogs meet and greet ‘smelly areas’ were in different places to normal! A run round the field behind the moorings, up by the long term carpark and then Finlay had the morning to himself while we perused Wroxham. Some food shopping, a few postcards and a fun visit to the Miniature Worlds attraction up past the railway station. We spent a good couple of hours marvelling at the building of the exhibits and I especially liked the penny arcade. Reminded me of a misspent youth twagging Latin lessons at school and going to Brighton seafront arcades. Seems I’m still a dab hand at the one where you time sending the penny so it shoves coins off the end of the oscilating floor. What with that and Judith doubling her money a number of times on a ‘ping the ball up into the winning hole’ we did think we might never get out!

Took a photo for Grendel of a big model boat. I bet it doesnt light up or motor across the broad though Grendel. 

Now at Salhouse, mainly because we want water and want to visit the Hoveton Great Broad nature reserve in the morning. 
 

 

[ZimbiIV]

I built one those.

I motorized the paddle wheel and put lots of led lights on.

Then dropped it while moving it to decorate the room it was in.

Doh! now spare bits for future models.

paul

[BroadAmbition]

We fitted one last year and have been very pleased with it. Regarding future supplies of spares etc, it seems production has now been moved to outside of Russia. The UK agent has around 12-24 months worth of spares already in the UK and details can be found on their website.

 

That's good to know as we fitted a Planar heating system a few years back now, been well chuffed with it too

Thanks for sharing

Griff

[SwanR]

We still haven’t been to Miniature World. Sounds worth a visit before we get right into the main summer season. 

[kpnut]

It’s a slightly odd place, but fun if you have memories to think back on. Lots of different aspects to it. They have massive collections of themed dinky cars etc, must be worth a fortune. 
 

Yesterday, Thurs June 9th. After our trip back through the bridge and mooring at Salhouse broad, our short walk took us to explore Salhouse village. Turning left at the road from the wood through from the moorings, we then took the right fork (upper street), past some lovely cottages with beautiful gardens, continuing in at a t junction. A left turn at the footpath sign found is in barley fields. Halfway along a field hedge there was a choice to go straight on or turn left along the headland of a rape crop, thankfully past it’s flowering stage as I can’t stand the smell of it in flower. We ruminated about the names of various grasses, having learnt them all once soon a time at college, as the headland was very diverse. This path wound around, past a few horse paddocks until hitting the road (lower street). We were going to go straight across, up the street and find our way back down a track that comes out between Salhouse and the fur and feather pub, but decided to walk left down the street to see what other nice gardens we could find. That took us straight back to the Broad carpark. What we didn’t achieve was actually finding Salhouse village!  That’s further up Lower Street I think. And according to the map there’s a pub etc. maybe as shop? I’ll find out one day!

Anyway, no timings, mileages cos I forgot (again), but a short and pleasant walk, no photos as posting them seems to be eating my data allowance, so I’ll have to be more sparing. 
 

The day has dawned with a beautiful sky. I must say it was a much warmer night. I need to ditch the winter togs!!!

[YnysMon]

There's a tea room called Prima Rosa that I've been wanting to visit for some time. They also sell gifts and a small range of food essentials. We must stop at Salhouse sometime!

[kpnut]

We walked past that Helen, so that’s closer to the moorings than the village itself. 
 

Friday June 10th. We took the very short journey from the broad over to the Hoveton Great Broad nature trail. I can extremely highly recommend an hour of so spent there, well labelled info boards etc, I’d say more informative than the boardwalk at Ranworth by a long chalk. It’s free, open 10 - 4 or so ( might have been 5) April till September. 
Then a complete change of area, we cruised down to Acle Bridge, poking our noses into Hoveton Little Broad on passing, just cos it’s there! I made a decision too late at St Benets for the end mooring, nearest the Ant mouth, turned round about halfway down the moorings to come back in to it and someone had beaten me to it. It seems to be rarely free and I’ve heard a good spot for otters. 
So on to Acle Bridge, the old  Pedro moorings now with new signboards, Broads Bank Moorings, free before 5pm, £10 overnight. We moored on the BA side and took ourselves off by foot to Upton. Going through the Pedro yard and following the path along to the angling club building, take a left path into the woods. It comes out at a gate into a field, keep following path through another delightful wood and out onto a track. Just keep following and you end up at Upton where no matter which way you go, because it’s like a square, you can end up at the White Horse pub and stores. We sat down the end of the garden for refreshment, full of flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants. That took 3/4 hour and was     1 3/4 miles. 
iInstead if returning via BoatDyke Lane and the dyke to the river and following the river path back to Acle, we then walked to Acle via Fishley church. Starting more or less where we’d got to Upton (at the end of the track), there’s a footpath sign to Fishley. Through a couple of fields, we came across the most beautiful little church, st Mary’s at Fishley. Locked unfortunately but open Fridays 10-4, we’d missed it by an hour. 

If you then take the footpath pointing to the left it goes down into Acle where you can then walk back along Acle Dyke and through the very nicely tended Mill House Farm moorings, £5 a night with money into an envelope into a box on the gate. Past Acle Bridge Inn and back to the boat. No idea how long that took or the mileage as we also walked to the far end of Acle to the Co-op. 
It’s busier down here, but not what I would class as ‘busy’. 
 

Salmon and salad and the last of the allotment spuds for tea with a nice glass of damson gin while waiting hopefully for an impressive sunset.
And maybe the Friday night quiz if I can link up properly. 

 

[SwanR]

Wow! You certainly like your walks Kate. What a long way you’ve been today. Beauty of a day as well. 

[YnysMon]

Ooh! Damson gin sounds very inviting! I’ve read about the Fishley Church and hope to visit.

We’ve only done walk from Acle to Upton along the Bure bank, must try other routes sometime. I’m glad we have bought into syndicate, as we wanted more time on the rivers than we could afford when hiring. However,   we don’t think we would be able to afford to maintain our own boat. Though I do envy the amount of time you have on the rivers.