Saturday 26 June
Sunday 27 June
Monday 28 June
Tuesday 29 June
Wednesday 30 June
Thursday 1 July
Friday 2 July
Potter Heigham to Ranworth
Ranworth to Neatishead
Neatishead to Barton Broad
Barton Broad to Salhouse Broad
Salhouse Broad to Berney Arms Mill
Berney Arms Mill to Brundall
Brundall to Berney Arms
returns to top of this page
We set out for Ludham Bridge straight away - about a one hour trip from Potter Heigham. It is about half a mile up the River Ant which is the narrowest and most twisty of the Broads rivers. The boat yard is just before the bridge and on a very tight s-bend. There were no obvious moorings at the yard but a few toots of the horn brought out a young chap who helped us tie up just round the corner from the yard, and assisted in swapping over the gas bottles. We also had a chance to eyeball the bridge which is only a few centimetres higher than our lowest possible height with the windscreen folded down. Luckily the bridge is flat and not arched, so tomorrow we will be passing under here at low water to explore the Ant.
After getting our gas sorted out we headed for Acle to meet Jim and Sara at the station. They were traveling by train from London and we had to be there to meet them by 12.50. The train arrived bang on-time as did the pre-booked taxi to take us the mile back to the boat. We stopped on the way at the Co-op to pick up Maureen who had been shopping.
We have now moored up on an island near to Ranworth. It is raining on and off, but we managed to get the burgers griddled in a dry spell.
Finally, for the first time we have no mobile phone reception at our mooring, so this page will have to be uploaded on Sunday.
Obviously, this was the empty one!
Ranworth
Jim and Sara
We woke up to sunshine and a blue sky. The anglers who had been fishing from their boat next to us when we turned in last night at 11.00 were still at it (fishing), though I ascertained that they had stopped for a while during the night when there was a thunderstorm. I guess that they were not too keen on holding 30ft long carbon fibre lightning conductors (called fishing rods) at such a time.
The now traditional Captain's Sunday breakfast was cooked on the griddle, taking advantage of the good weather. We then set off for the river Ant. This was a popular destination, and there were queues of boats heading up stream, as well as batches of hire boats heading down stream from the boat yards on the Ant.
To get under the bridge at Ludham we needed to fold down everything including the windscreen. The published headroom is 2.6m at high water. Our air draft is measured at 2.55m over the steering compass. In theory we would have at least 150mm clear over the top of the steering compass including an allowance for tide. So as we approached we hinged everything down, took down the ensign, laid down the chairs on the back, put on our hard hats, and approached very slowly and with much trepidation! As it turned out we had slightly more clearance than expected. But I did need to duck down to the point where I couldn't see ahead and relied on a confirmation of the boat's heading from the crew on the forward deck.
The river is very pretty, very twisty, narrow in places and very rural - probably the nicest of all we have seen so far. Every turn presented a new vista of wind-pumps, dykes, reeds and rural scenes.
We soon arrived at How Hill Water Reserve and the Toad Hole Cottage which is an old eel catcher and marsh-man's cottage. It has been turned into a small museum. It also served as the starting point for a very interesting nature trail through woods, and alongside two broads. There were several bird hides and almost no-one else there.
After a traipse round the trail we had lunch and then continued on our way. We passed Irstead and then entered Barton Broad which opened up quite suddenly from the narrow river. All of a sudden there were yachts, dinghies, cruisers, and every other form of recreational boat heading in every direction of the compass. We headed roughly North West and eventually found the entrance to Lime Kiln Dyke which leads to the moorings at Neatishead. The dyke is narrow, fairly straight and quite shallow. The average depth was showing about 3.5 feet below the transducer, on the depth sounder. All of a sudden it dropped to nothing and for a moment we thought we were running out of water and going to spend the evening on the mud. But then we had four foot of water again and the skipper was happy.
We finally reached Neatishead Staithe which runs at right angles off the dyke. It is three boats wide and four hire boats long. There were several spaces vacant so we headed in and squeezed in between two boats guarding the entrance with a few inches to spare either side. Then we were in our berth. Another boat then left, backing out by rope power to avoid the shambles that usually occurs when hire boats are driven in reverse. We then took the opportunity of the spare space to spin Starry Night round, so now we are pointing in the right direction for departure tomorrow morning. Since we have arrived two more boats have departed and five have arrived. Each arrival results in the skipper's blood pressure rising as the hire boats bounce off Starry Night's fenders. In some cases they have absolutely no idea how to get into the space they are aiming for. Intervention by yours truly has been required on several occasions to prevent another scraping!
We have now just had a thunderstorm and there has been a lot of rain. This has rather put paid to our griddling intentions of this evening and so we have had to resort to cooking on the cooker! It looks as if more rain is on the way
Phone reception here has been somewhat lacking - earlier we had enough to send yesterday's diary page, which had been sitting in the computer since last night due to poor reception. Here the reception has now dropped to zilch so we will see if it picks up again later.
9 July - Folding down the side wind screen
Typical Broads scene on the River Ant
Neatishead Staithe - calm after the storm
The wanderers return
We left at 10.00 and headed across Barton Broad and on up the Ant, across Sutton Broad and to the village of Sutton, where we stopped at Sutton Staithe. There were hardly any boats to be seen compared to yesterday. At Sutton we discovered that the word Staithe is Saxon for landing place, Sutton itself having Saxon origins. Sutton was originally cut-off from the rest of the country by thick forest and marshland. And then finally by Beaching in 1959!
At Sutton there is the tallest windmill in England at 80ft, which was built in 1789. It is nine floors high. There is a museum there and you can go in the mill and clamber up to the top floor from where you can see the Norfolk coast. It was about a mile from the mooring, through the village and down some country lanes. The museum was full of paraphernalia from the first half of the twentieth century, including a collection of hand operated apple peeling machines, grocery items, posters and mementos from World War II. The mill itself is still being restored and needed a lot of work doing.
After the mill we stopped off at a local pottery and then headed back to the boat. By this time it was 2.30 and we were ready for lunch. After lunch we decided to visit the various extremities of the Ant - Stalham and Wayford Bridge, neither of which were particularly noteworthy. We also made a detour to look at Cox's boatyard and the adjacent Paddy's Lane moorings, which were very pretty.
We then headed back to Barton Broad, were we had decided to anchor for the night. We had picked a spot earlier, just off the main navigation channel and the first job was to check the water depth, which was just OK. However we had a real job getting the anchor to set as the bottom is very soft mud and the anchor didn't want to bite. It preferred to plough the bottom. This is why the locals all use "mud weights" presumably. Anyway, after a lot of hassle we eventually have got the anchor stuck in the mud and we seem to be held in. The GPS anchor drag alarm is set and visually we seem to be staying put too.
We cooked a rather fine stir-fry and had dinner al fresco on the back of the boat watching the grebes and terns dipping and diving. We have now been joined by a flock of greylag geese on the scrounge.
The crew are not too happy with the night anchor-watch duty-roster proposed by the skipper and there is talk of mutiny. Perhaps it will have to be double grog rations again tonight?
Sutton windmill
Making adjustments to the anchor line
Our anchorage
Relaxing at the end of a long hard day!
After breakfast outside on the back of the boat we decided that a foraging party should be dispatched to the hinterland of Neatishead to replenish some of the critical supplies such as milk and bread. The dinghy was readied and a crew of three set off, planning to land at the mooring we had occupied the previous night, which was about 15 minutes walk from the village store.
Mike remained on the boat and busied himself with boat chores, fixed up reservations for Lowestoft Marina, and had a conversation with the harbour master at Southwold Harbour and reserved a berth there as well as finding out various details relating to getting into the harbour.
The foraging party succeeded in obtaining the required provisions and set off on the return trip. In the quest to spot a bittern (so far failed), the dinghy captain authorised a detour to explore some of the reed beds. Getting in too close, they ran into shallow water and ingested some muddy water into the outboard cooling system. Wisely they shut the engine down and rowed out to deeper water but were unable to restart the engine. A phone call to base camp failed to glean any useful help and so they took it in turns to row the dinghy back to the mother ship. As you would expect, the engine started perfectly first time when Mike tried to trouble shoot it!
After a well-deserved cup of tea we weighed anchor, which was a tiresome process because the anchor chain piles up in the chain locker to the point that it then jams in the chain tube. Someone then has to go and unravel the chain in the anchor chain locker to let more in which works OK when raising the anchor but can cause the chain to jam when the anchor is being lowered! In any case it is a serious nuisance as the anchor chain locker is not the easiest place to get at. Basically the chain locker is not deep enough and/or the overall configuration is wrong. This is now on the winter job list to sort out for next year’s cruise.
We set off for the return trip down the Ant and stopped at Ludham Bridge for lunch, as well as to lower masts, aerials, windscreen etc for the low bridge. At the Bure we headed West in the direction of Wroxham, passed through Horning and turned into Salhouse Broad where we are anchored in a little bay made by Salhouse Spit. The moorings here are all stern-on only and are filling up as the cruising day draws to an end. We reckon that at a pinch you could moor about 50 boats stern-on. Anchoring away from the mayhem of engine revving and hire boat reversing is kinder to the nerves!!
The foraging party return
A reedman with his tools
Ludham Bridge
Sailing through Horning
The rain lasted no more than 30 minutes, and then we were back up on top again and able to spot a marsh harrier hunting for prey alongside the river. We arrived at Acle in plenty of time and got a taxi into the centre of the village where we holed up in the King’s Head for lunch – Adnams beer here – very nice it was!
Just before 1.00 we said our goodbyes and Jim and Sara headed for the station while we went off to Budgens to get in more supplies. We had arranged with the taxi driver to pick us up around 1.15 to 1.20 on our phone call. At 1.15 I phoned the chap and the rat told me he was in Great Yarmouth: he would pick us up at about 2.00! Obviously he had a better prospect than the £4 he would get from us. Not amused I was. So we found another taxi company, and a cab arrived within five minutes which whisked us back to within a stones throw of our boat.
To get through Great Yarmouth and under the two restricting low bridges we had to be on our way by 2.00 as we wanted to be passing through Yarmouth at about 3.45 for optimum bridge clearance and slack water. Our journey down the Bure was very breezy but the low water meant that there were lots of mud banks exposed and plenty of wading birds to be seen.
The passage through Great Yarmouth itself was uneventful (thankfully) though I had calculated that the clearance under the bridges would be somewhat less than last time (200mm) which made a huge difference to the apparent clearance and worried us for a few minutes as we approached. As it was, there must have been still a good 300mm clearance to the top of the windscreen – not a lot really.
As we approached the Yare, we could see Breydon lift bridge beginning to open. We had been following on the VHF radio, the passage of a yacht called “Toreya” which had booked a bridge opening and had been reporting its progress across Breydon Water to the bridge control. So we had expected to see some action here. It was awfully tempting to nip through the nice open gap, but we followed regulations and passed under the appropriate side span.
Our trip across Breydon Water was very windy – we were well and truly battered. Watching the bird life on the mud flats was rewarding – we saw a flock of curlews, numerous shellduck, oyster catchers, redshanks, a couple of lapwing, some avocets, egyptian geese, greylag geese, you name it – it was there.
We have moored up next to the Berney Arms mill and here we saw an egret fishing along the water line. It seems quite quiet here compare to the stretch of river we were on yesterday. Is this the calm before the storm tomorrow when we head up to Brundall? Probably!
An inside job
Not opening for us........
......... but for him
Moored at Berney Arms mill
We woke up to blue skies and a few clouds with a promising light wind. We decided to head straight for Brundall in case the weather deteriorated. It would take about three hours,
The first hour to Reedham from the Berney Arms was across Reedham Marshes. We kept a look out for interesting bird life, trying to refine our identification skills to distinguish between the different and more obscure wading birds. We were spurred on in this endeavour after identifying some sand martins on yesterday evening’s walk. At first we thought that a little brood of five fledglings were swallows. They were rowed up neatly on a twig near the ground patiently waiting for the parents to feed them. We had our doubts when we saw the adult birds. Only after checking carefully in our RSPB bird book did we come to the conclusion that they were sand martins. So now we are trying to pay the same attention to other birds to try to sort out the whimbrels from the curlews and the divers from the cormorants – not easy!
Reedham swing bridge was closed, but the whole process was much easier now that we knew the operator had a radio. A quick call on VHF Channel 12 established that there was (just) over 3 metres clearance. We need 2.9m to clear the windscreen. So we dropped the mast and antennae, kneeled down (and prayed!) and passed under with about 100mm to spare – the closest yet! As we went under a train passed over which explains why it was closed! The worst bit of the bridge only came into view when we were fully committed to passing under - a significant deformation in the bottom flange of the main bridge girder that must have reduced the clearance locally by 25mm or more! It must have been some vessel to do that to the bridge!
We chugged past Reedham village where the hire boats were packed in round the pub, two abreast, and headed on towards Brundall. We passed the Reedham chain car ferry, which is supposed to be the smallest in England. We gave it a very wide berth as we wanted to be sure that the chains were well and truly on the bottom of the river before we tried to pass over them. Then it was the Cantley sugar refinery, standing idle while it waits for the sugar beet harvest. And then about another hour and we were on the outskirts of Brundall.
There are a number of side dykes here with lots of boat yards, marinas and hire companies lurking down them. On the river-front it is mostly private land or commercial premises with the huge Broom Boats factory complex dominating the waterfront in the centre, and Broom boats parked everywhere. There was a small shop and chandlery (since closed - as of 2008) where you could stop for a short while but apart from the pub on the wrong side of the river there was nowhere to stop. This is typical of many of the small villages on the broads.
We patronised the shop for some engine oil and a new search light to replace the one that had given up the ghost, and a newspaper, and then we headed on a quarter of a mile to a secluded mooring just big enough for three boats opposite Surlingham Broad.
After lunch we took the dinghy onto the broad and explored the nooks and crannies amongst the reed beds. Very pretty. We then headed into Brundall and explored the boatyard dykes in search of some petrol for the outboard. Eventually we found some at the Broom boatyard where we filled the petrol can. We then tootled back to Starry Night and got the dinghy hoisted on the davits just beating a thunderstorm and downpour. Another close shave with the weather. The weather is sunny again now – it bodes well for the cook-out tonight!
Reedham swing bridge
Reedham chain car ferry
Moored on the Yare opposite Surligham Broad - less hire boats in these parts
The chap who runs the pub there was out in his punt nailing together loose pieces of the wooden staging, which is owned by the pub and can accommodate probably ten or more hire boats. As he put it, he was repairing the week’s damage ready for the weekend. The mooring fees here are £10 per night – quite high for the Broads, but this is refunded in bar and meal charges. Apparently the pub restaurant gets fully booked at weekends and people are unable to get a table and therefore their money back in meals – which just leaves the bar! We were urged to book a table – which we did not! He said he would be back a 5.30 to collect the mooring fees.
After he had departed we prepared the dinghy for its trip up the Chet to Loddon. By the time all was done and lunch made and packed, it was gone 12.00 and we chugged away from Starry Night and headed for the mouth of the Chet.
The Chet is quite a narrow little river and very twisty, not recommended for boats of our draught which would touch the bottom at low water. And at the moment we are near to Spring tides and the tidal range is exceptionally high so the low water would have been very low. The domain for the shoal draught bath-tub shaped hire boats! Anyway, we met a few hire boats on the way up, not many.
Loddon is a very pretty village with a water mill and just a few boat yards. There was a fishmonger from whom we bought a dressed Cromer crab for a whole £2.50. We then had tea and chocolate cake at Rosie Lee’s Tea Room. While we were in there the sky got very dark but didn’t manage to rain. When we came out there was blue sky and fluffy white clouds which we had all the way back to Starry Night.
We had decided not to eat at the Ferry Boat pub after all, but to head back to the Berney Arms mooring which we like so much for its tranquility and remoteness in the marshes by Breydon Water. There was a very strong tidal stream running in our favour – even on tick-over we were doing four knots plus. Luckily the bridge at Reedham was open so we had no problems there.
As we cruised down the Yare near to Berney Arms we saw a seal swimming down stream. His nose was just sticking up above the water and when he heard us he dived under and his unmistakable rear flippery feet came into view. We arrived at Berney Arms fifteen minutes before the heavens opened, but now, the sun is already shining again. Cook-out again? We'll have to see what the weather does.
The water mill at Loddon
Loddon basin
Back at the Berney Arms Mill
Copyright © 2004-2009 Mike Hawkridge