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.