Wednesday

We were away by 7am with Harris already walked and moved back down the River Ant and back on to the Bure. We filled up with water and had our midweek pump out at Ludham Bridge before moving on to Horning and Wroxham. We managed to get a mooring in Wroxham by calling on the reciprocal agreement whereby any Blakes or Hoseasons boat can moor up at another Blakes or Hoseasons boatyard free of charge. Most of us enjoyed an hour in the town including a visit to the renowned Roy’s of Wroxham, reputedly the ‘largest village shop in the world’ and including its own McDonalds outlet.

We were reminded that Horning and Wroxham are definitely the ‘Riviera of the Broads’ places with some truly beautiful riverside residences (only a very small selection of them are on the blog – far too many to edit and post!). There was also a number of large Mississippi riverboats running up and down the river with day trippers aboard as well as an endless number of day boats and even one beautifully restored traditional Norfolk wherry on the move.

We had lunch on the move and then attempted to moor at Ranworth on Malthouse Broad, an attractive spot with an on site pub. After hovering around for about 30 minutes looking for somewhere to moor, we gave up and decided we had to look at Plan B – to stop at neighbouring South Walsham Broad. There are two free staithes there. The first one was full and we sensed a lot of boats coming the other way, making us wonder if the second one was full as well.

We moved on to find it had a single space left and we were in. The village is 25 minutes walk away, so Andrew, Chris and I set off with Harris to see if it was worth going there later. We found the first pub which was closed between 3pm and 5pm, so our plan for a swift half there at that time was thwarted!

We returned to the boat to see how well Elizabeth, Catherine and Sarah were getting on with their jigsaw, only for them to tell us that our boat had been hit 3 times by the same boat as it attempted to move out from the berth next to us. After the third collision, they raced off shouting a brief “Sorry” as they went. Sarah was able to get a photo of the offending boat so that we can report it to our boatyard later, although we couldn’t see any significant damage.

Our meal was a split event with the young ‘uns going to a former pub and now a Chinese/Thai restaurant while the more mature members of our party went to the only surviving pub in the village. Both parties very much enjoyed what they had at their respective eateries.