Chester 24th-27th May 2011

We have just had a few very pleasant days in Chester area staying with Julie's parents. The weather was slightly cooler than recent days and there were a few showers plus quite a wind, however we were able to get out each day. We also spent some time looking round Pat and Peter's (Julie's parents) well looked after garden. Our first trip out was to Chester city. We travelled on the park and ride bus that started from close to Chester Zoo.

The streets of Chester are full of life

The Rows Chester

Chester is a delightful, vibrant, city. The thing that struck me most was that there were numerous shops that were unique to Chester. Most cities/towns these days are almost carbon copies of each other but not Chester. The Rows, which are a system of walkways that form continuous covered galleries that are above one level of shops, contain an upper level of further shops have a huge variety of shops. This form of galleries originated in the 13th and 14th centuries although the Chester Rows can be traced back to the Roman occupation of Chester. There are lots and lots of Roman remains in Chester and you can usually find at least some archaeological investigations going on somewhere.

The River Dee at Chester

We walked down to the River Dee and found that many of the facilities in the area of the Band Stand were being spruced up and it all looked clean and tidy and ready for the many visitors expected in the summer. One of the pleasure trip boats was running and for £6.50 you experience half an hour on the river. We declined this offer in view of the changeable weather.

The Carousel at Bridgemere

On the next day our hosts took us on a visit to Bridgemere Garden Centre. This garden centre is billed as Britain's largest and most spectacular garden centre and this is no exaggeration. It's located on the borders  of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. Apart from the garden centre this part of the world is well worth a visit for the beautiful and largely undeveloped countryside. The garden centre covers 50 acres and is one of the largest garden centres in the World. It has 6 acres of themed award winning show gardens, I particularly enjoyed the raised bed vegetable gardens. The nursery grows nearly a million plants a year! As well as the 'normal' garden centre things there's a beautiful carousel and a number of huge shops. For example 'Hobby Craft' and 'Lakeland' have shops here. A shop called 'Nauticalia' was of particular interest as it sold a wide variety of high quality items that varied from electronic 'toys' to collectables of all types.

One of the award winning show gardens at Bridgemere

Many thanks to our hosts in Chester

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 7

Inside How Hill Eel catchers cottage

One of several wind pumps at How Hill

This part of the blog covers our seven day holiday on a boat on the Norfolk Broads. To read the account of the holiday in chronological order please scroll down to read day one first.

20th May, Friday was our last full day on the Broads. We had decided to slowly make our way back to the boat yard to moor for the night ready to unload the next morning. Our first stop was at How Hill. There was plenty of free mooring there and some interesting things to visit. There was a victorian eel catchers cottage with appropriate furniture and complete with a garden from the period. There is also some interesting looking walks in this area and we planned to come back, possibly by car, to complete some of the walks.Our next stop was going to be to drop our mud weight some where on Barton Broad. However when we arrive on the Broad it was quite windy and a little chilly so we looked for somewhere more sheltered to stop. We headed towards Neatishead staithe but came across a sign that said the dyke leading there was narrow and would make turning difficult, so we gave up on that one. Gay's Staithe looked inviting (end on mooring) but was full. We returned to the edge of Barton broad and dropped the mud weight. It was immediately obvious that we were dragging the weight (it might have been better to let more rope out to get a more horizontal pull). We pulled the weight up and all went well until we had to get it over the edge of the boat and this was difficult because it meant leaning out over the water with a heavy weight at the end of your arm. Anyway between us we got the mud weight stowed. We cruised on to Barton Turf where once again moorings looked very pleasant but were all full. We returned to How Hill and spent a pleasant afternoon relaxing in the sun. There was an interesting incident when a duck first bit my finger (painlessly) and then started to come into the cabin area. This duck was a female mallard and a male duck suddenly attacked the female from the rear and she flew into the cabin. Luckily she could fly out the other side but not before frightening the life out of both of us :-).

There was obviously lots of new boat hirer's coming down river from Stalham as we saw many dozens of boats going by. There was quite a wide variety of standards of driving! Many of the parties on the boats were all male and each of the guys had a can of beer in their hands. We were quite pleased that we weren't going to be around over the bank holiday. When we arrived back at Stalham, at about 18:30 it was all quiet and we could easily moor. I fetched the car to park near the boat and we unloaded some of our kit. The next morning it was a simple matter finish off the packing. The boat yard people had everything very well organised and in a short time the boat was refuelled, the toilet was pumped out and it was refilled with water. A quick visit to the office revealed that we had used about £85 of fuel and we were given a £15 refund from the £100 we had paid in advance. After looking at some beautiful luxurious boats that we may rent in the future we left for the three hour journey home. Overall we had very much enjoyed our holiday and once we were home we were already planning to have another one on the Broads.

Saphire's driving position

The sun sets on a great holiday.

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 6

St Benet's Abbey

Lots of beautiful homes at Horning and Wroxham

Thursday 19th May was our 6th Day. We had a cruise up towards Wroxham. We were looking for provisions and water. There were numerous lovely houses along the river at Horning and and Wroxham but they both had no available places to moor. We also passed some huge boats that were taking people on trips, passing these needed some caution. On the way back we visited Salhouse Broad where you have to pay to moor (end on mooring). The charge was well worth it though as it included water and it was about a twenty minute walk from the staithe to a nice little shop/post office where we were able to get the supplies we wanted. We sat at Salhouse for a short while and watched the trip boats moving slowly round the broad one after another.Further back towards our moorings of the previous two nights we stopped at St Benet's Abbey. The staithe here was rather low and getting off the boat proved to be a little tricky. However the ruin was interesting with a wind pump having been built into the gatehouse of the old abbey. A couple of plaques gave some details of what used to be on the site but further investigation on the internet might be interesting. Our final journey of the day took us up the Thurne to see if mooring at Ludham was a possibility but the inlet to the village was narrow and many of the moorings had been closed, those left were full so we returned to our usual haunt of Thurne mouth.

Almost everywhere we looked there was a heron

One of the large pleasure boats near Wroxham

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 5

A wherry seen on River Bure

On route to the Ship Pub in South Walsham

Wednesday 18th May was our 5th day on the Broads and we had short ride to South Walsham Broad. We asked whether there was a shop nearby and were given directions to the village. It was about a 20 minute (or more) walk that was reasonably complicated (mainly left turns). We arrived at the Ship and enjoyed a pleasant meal. We then went to look for the shop, We were given directions but no one mentioned that it was half day closing and the shop was shut! After the walk back to the boat we cruised round Ranworth Broad but did not land. We started to go towards Horning but the lack of suitable moorings led us to return to virtually the same moorings that we had used the night before, Thurne Mouth.where we had another peaceful night.

Thanks to Peter here is a plot of our Wedneday travels.

The mooring near Thurle mouth where we moored.

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 4

Reedham Chain Ferry 

Pub at Reedham, beware the tides!!!

We left Cantley and decided to moor at Reedham. As we approached a guy in uniform shouted that we were approaching the wrong way, I turned and he helped us to moor. At the time I rather resented his intrusion but later we found that his help was certainly needed. We walked up a hill to a small shop and bought some bits. When we tried to leave I untied the wrong end of the boat first and the boat was caught by the tide. It rotated and almost ripped the other rope from my hand. Julie was on the boat alone and only the help of a passerby prevented her from being swept away. The person who was walking by helped me hold the boat for a few seconds until Julie could make her way to the controls and use the engine to regain control. We were pleased to eventually get safely away from Reedham. We travelled towards Yarmouth hoping to arrive at low water as required. We were just a little early and could see the dangers, as we rounded the corner in Yarmouth we were met by a very strong tide coming down the River Bure. The engine was powerful enough to overcome the tide but it was hard work! We had read a number of warnings about not going round the outside of the yellow buoy and saw the reason for this. A cruiser had either chosen to go or had been swept on the wrong side of the buoy and had run aground, finishing lying on its side.We travelled up the Bure, Acle was charging for mooring and there was no room at Stokesby, so we travelled on to moor at Boundary Farm. There was some earth moving going on in the fields next to the moorings but there was no noise at night.

Cruiser stranded at Yarmouth after taking wrong course

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 3

Only a few wind pumps to see on the way to Yarmouth

The vast expanse of Breydon Water is a bit daunting!

We had a lazy morning at Stokesby as the tides wouldn't be right to get through Great Yarmouth until after 15:00. There was a nice little shop at Stokesby and we took the opportunity to stock up with a few supplies. We were joined at the moorings by our boats sister boat, Sapphire 3. We then left to make the long journey down to Yarmouth. During the holiday we had been using our amateur radio to transmit our position, Peter (Julies father) had been kindly plotting our course and some of his plots are attached to this blog. Some parts of Yarmouth as seen from the river are a little past their sell by date and look rather dilapidated. There is no doubt that it's very important to attempt passing though Yarmouth at the correct time for the tide, anything else could certainly be dangerous as the tides run very fast and as you round to go towards Breydon Water you meet the tide from another direction. Breydon Water itself is a huge expanse of water and can be quite rough when the wind and tide are unkind. The trip across took us more than an hour. We were helped by the GPS's on our phones to accurately find the exit onto the River Yare. The tides here go up and down by about 2 metres and this can make mooring hazardous from the point of view of the length of rope you leave and from the point of view of getting on and off the boat. The banks can tower over the boat. We passed Reedham deciding instead to moor at Cantley, this turned to be a wise decision. As you approach Cantley you see the large sugar factory but the actual mooring , near a pub, is very quiet.

 

Cantley from Peter's plot on Google Maps

Route to and across Breydon Water

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 2

Potter Heigham Bridge

Stokesby, Pub and Shop here.

Sunday 15th May was our second day and our first job was to turn the boat round. The water at Catfield Staithe was not really wide enough to turn so the turn involved reversing into a small inlet and swinging the front round, this went well as we took our time and did everything slowly with Julie holding a rope to pivot the back. We had a look round Hickling Broad which has posts that restrict navigation to only the centre of the Broad. Our next destination was Horsey Mere. At the far end of this stretch of water was a narrow passage to Horsey Wind pump. Going down this passage proved to be a big mistake. There was no room to turn round and a number of sailing boats were behind us drifting all over the place. We had to reverse all the way out. I got on OK with this until we got to the sailing boats and passing them proved almost impossible. Luckily one of the people with the sailing folk guided us past he difficult part. In future we would avoid this bit! We did have a look up towards West Somerton but the river quickly narrowed and after our experience at Horsey Mere we decided to turn round whilst we had the chance. We arrived back at Potter Heigham an hour or so too early to get under the bridge, we past the time eating fish and chips from the shop. There was also a large 'hypermarket' that sold a vast variety of goods. Herbert Woods yard is also situated here.Once under the bridge we had made our way to Stokesby. We were lucky enough to get one of the three mooring spaces there and tied up for the evening. We had found that the 'double' bed was a bit of a close fit and used both bedrooms so that we could get a good nights sleep.

Duck family at Stokesby

Norfolk Broads 2011 Day 1

We picked up our boat, the Sapphire 1, from Richardsons Boat yard at Stalham on the 14th May at 1:00pm. The Richardsons yard is huge with possibly hundreds of boats. Ours was, I would say, one of the mid range as far as luxury is concerned. The takeover of the boat was reasonably fast and as we were in a hurry to get to Potter Heigham Bridge in time for the pilot there to take us through, we were grateful to get away quickly. With hindsight there were a few more questions we could have asked and could have sought more advice on the techniques of mooring in difficult places etc., still we picked it all up on the way. We made our way down the River Ant through Barton Broad and Ludham Bridge to the River Bure. We then went up the River Thure to Potter Heigham. This was about a three hour journey and was really too much of a rush to do on our first day. As we went along we got to know the boats facilities better, there were two toilets and they proved to be a challenge to operate. When we arrived at Potter Heigham the pilot imediately took us under the bridge (£10 return charge). There are only certain times when the boats will pass under the bridge and it's worth ringing ahead to check that you won't have a long wait. Once we were through the bridge we relaxed a little and made our way to Catfield Staithe. This was a lovely quiet spot but there was only room for one boat and barely enough room to turn out 35ft boat round. This was also one of the few places where TV reception was difficult.

 Catfield Staithe

Stoke Goldington Steam Rally 2011

On Saturday 7th May 2011 we went to the Stoke Goldington Steam Rally. Although it stayed dry all day there was a forecast of showers and this may have been what made the crowd slightly smaller than the previous year. It was still a great show and the variety of stands with all sorts of interesting stuff for sale was as great as ever. I published some of my pictures of tractors etc on Face Book and got a good response.

Probably one of the highlights of ths show is the large area available for demonstrations of things like ploughing with both horses and tractors. There are also tank rides and off road demo's by Land Rovers. At this show we found a petrol driven log splitter of interest (we would like one).

Next years show is on the 12th & 13th May 2012 and we will hope to be there.

Rushden Transport CavalcADE 2011

Today (1/5/11) we visited the local Steam Rally known as the Rushden Transport Cavalcade. The weather was beautiful and there was a huge crowd. As usual masses of military and virtually all other forms of transport.We saw Titan the Robot for the first time and that was very entertaining.