Friday 5 June
Saturday 6 June
Sunday 7 June
Oulton Broad to Berney Arms via Reedham
Berney Arms to St Olaves
St Olaves to Brundall
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By lunch time we had made an uneventful (thank goodness!) journey to Berney Arms where we stopped for the day. In the afternoon we went for a walk along by Breydon Water for a short distance. Lots of interesting birds tantalizingly on the opposite shore line. We could just make out some avocets.
There was a good sunset this evening and Mike took lots of moody photographs out over the marshes. This evening’s full moon and broken cloud cast an eerie light over the windmill.
The long mooring quay at Berney Arms empty but for three boats at one end and us at the other. Berney Arms pub in the far distance, supposedly the most remote pub in England.
The pub itself - plenty of punters and warm weather expected if all the picnic tables are anything to go by. Nice shade of pink!
It’s been five years since we visited St Olaves by boat so we decided to head up the Waveney and try to moor here for the night. There is a bridge at St Olaves that we cannot fit under in theory. So a visit to St O’ for us involves the long way round via the Yare and the top end of Breydon Water – which is why we haven’t been there for a while.
We arrived at St Olaves mid morning and the small staithe there was empty enabling us to choose a spot at one end to moor, hopefully out of harm’s way. There is one electricity point here and we plugged in promptly to take advantage of it.
After we had settled in we went for a walk around the small village. The old shop that was there five years ago and had mostly empty shelves with just a few solitary tins sitting on them had changed hands. It was now a boating shop and outboard repair workshop – progress! The shop at the petrol station stocked essentials but had run out of newspapers. They did have some excellent sausage rolls which were still warm and we decided to munch on them as we headed back down the road rather than let them cool down.
We had another look round the ruined St Olaves Priory of the Augustinian Order which was founded around1216. The remains include parts of the cloister and the refectory undercroft which has a rare example of medieval brickwork in its vaulted ceiling. The name of the priory commemorates Olaf, an eleventh century king of Norway, who crusaded with the message of “baptism or death” – obviously a nice broad minded chap well deserving of commemoration!
During the course of the afternoon we kept a watchful eye on the bridge gauge to see what the bottom of the tide would give in clearance. We were surprised to see that there was 3.2m of headroom – enough to get us under without folding down the windscreen and with 0.2m clearance. So we will bear this in mind for the future as it gives us a useful “short cut”.
In the evening we went round to the Bell for our dinner; it was excellent. Mike’s steak and kidney pie had more than the one statutory piece of TDA* kidney found in many pub pies of the name – it was loaded!
*Trades Description Act
St Olaves priory - remains thereof
A St Olaves local - hunkered down, rear into the cold wind and looking rather miserable. Others nearby all doing the same!
St Olaves Staithe in the distance on the right with three boats filling it.
By the time we set off it was spitting rain and somewhere after Berney Arms it started to rain properly, so we stopped at Polkeys Mill for a cup of tea and to wait out the rain. The rain promptly stopped and so we headed on up river until it started to rain some more, so we stopped again, at Cantley, and had lunch at the Reedcutter'’ Inn. We have not eaten here before and were pleasantly surprised.
Then it was on to Brundall where we will stay for a few days and make day trips by road. If there is a sunny day we may take Starry Night to Norwich for the day. But the forecast is quite pessimistic. Home on Wednesday.
As a postscript to the coupling saga of last week I have established that it is a Vetus Type 6 Coupling fitted to Starry Night, and have had lots of input from various sources regarding the engineering issues related to the failure of the coupling. I shall be saying nothing more on this matter until the liabilities are all resolved to my satisfaction. Then there will be a full write up on the technical pages. You may read between the lines if you wish! Rusty anchors are in the offing!
Moonlight over the Yare - nothing to do with today - just an interesting picture!
Copyright © 2009 Mike Hawkridge