San Selino Day Three



On the Tuesday evening I found myself indulging somewhat in some rather nice Chillan red wine whilst at the same time having a chat in the Norfolk Broads Forum’s weekly ‘Tuesday Night Chat’ in the chat room.  This is where technology can be wonderful – me moored up in on the River Ant and yet joining in a good banter online with others.

So morning came of the third day and I found while my tastes may like the wine, my head was feeling rather fragile – I therefore did not rise too early and my plans for the day were going to be rather sedate – cruise down the Ant to Ludham Bridge, take on water – then head up the Bure to Wroxham for lunch.

And so having departed for Ludham Bridge it was once again a lovely day, cooler than of late and with more cloud but none the less it was good to be on the water – and I arrived at Ludham to find another boat at the moorings taking on water themselves.  Now despite it being the third day, these forward steer boats always leave me a little anxious when coming into a mooring – not because of what the rear of the boat is doing, more how shallow or sharp an approach to make which is something with other boats I find easy, but with a ‘bath tub’ seem to get right through luck rather than judgement.


To avoid any messy scenes I moored several boat lengths away and waited for the other boat to depart having topped up their tanks with water.  They dutifully left and pulled the boat forward closer to Ludham Bridge on the ropes. Time for me to take their place in front of one of Nancy Oldfield Trust’s boats. The mooring could have been better, but once tied up I proceeded to make a right hash of things – I walked over to the hose (which is on a ‘fire hose reel’ at this location) and taking the end walked off with it, confident it would pay out behind me.  It did, until I was almost at the bank where a kink abruptly stopped the reel and me – I almost went over on my backside!

I thought I’d got away with looking too silly and change of plan, unreel some hose then take the hose to the boats water filler – it is on the offside of this class but once in the hole back ashore and turn the tap on.  Simples.  I wait and I wait, I listen to the hose – sure I can hear the flow of water – but as time past I was still waiting and thought I surely would not have used up this much water?  I check the overfill but no water was coming out, back on the boat round to the filler hole and find there is NO water coming out the hose.

I now am feeling most foolish and bearing in mind that people are taking some interest in proceedings, pretend that I have indeed filled the tanks, deposit my £1 in the collection box and reel the hose back in – upon which water begins to gush from it all over me! Time to make a swift departure and now head to Ranworth to top up – thinking rightly as it turned out, that water availability at Wroxham would be hard to get for the boatyards being full of their own boats since so few were on hire at this time of year.

A quick ‘pit stop’ was made at Ranworth Staithe – the right hand of the two hoses seeming a faster filler that the one of the left, and so once topped up it was time to depart and heard off to Wroxham. Passing through Horning – looking lovely – but decided to not stop this time around and carry on – also I was feeling decidedly hungry having not had breakfast and wanting to have Fish & Chips  for lunch.

I popped onto Wroxham and Salhouse Broads briefly, and then as I came into Wroxham itself the boatyards were indeed full up – but the moorings outside the Hotel and Café were free.  Good then I will moor at the Café there as I have on the last three occasions I’ve visited Wroxham.  Only this time, rather than moor up – pop off to do what you need and return to pay your dues, a lady came out wanting £10.00 – regardless of if I was there for an hour or overnight – thus this became the single most expansive mooring  I’ve had to date.  

Grays Fish & Chips however was lovely – not so cheap, the Grays Whopper does not include a drink and comes in at £8.95 but does include bread and butter, large portion of fish and mushy peas.  I have to say the quality was excellent both in terms of the fish being freshly cooked to order and eh chips, chips and fresh not soggy and warmed up.

I then popped into Roys – noticing that they have include now three sets of automatic doors just to get into the place if one approaches’ to the ‘McDonalds’ entrance. I got another bottle of red wine, some sweets and a few other bits to make a nice meal on board later in the evening, then back to the boat and away.  I was pleased to get away actually having got so used to the peace and quiet, the noise of Wroxham, people, cars and so on was a shock to the system.

I decided a good mooring would be Cockshoot Dyke not far from Horning, and so made for this – but it was just as I got to Salhouse Broad 5 (later found out to be 6) Fineway Day Boats were out in precession and doing some fine weaving, though full of children having a great time and behaving well all in life jackets and keeping to the speed limit, compared to some of the Broads Direct day boats rushing back to base going too fast but it certainly made for interesting cursing making my way past the boats and then meeting a small fishing dinghy and large ‘Broom’ boat coming the opposite way.

It was then a very quiet and pleasant cruise back towards Horning and found Cockshoot Dyke to be my own – this is a lovely inlet that you can follow a boardwalk to views over Cockshoot Broad – there is even a small hide to watch the birds from over the broad which has been closed to craft for many years and is akin to ‘how the broads once would have been’ – full of natural wildlife, clear waters and plants. Beautiful.

Despite the fact it was not much past 3:00pm I was feeling rather like taking a nap, perhaps the wine, perhaps the large portion of Fish & Chips earlier – but you know that is what makes solo boating so lovely – one can decide what to do when one wants without a care, and so I did indeed have a nap and woke later as the sun was setting.  I’m lucky to be able to do this I thought and sat in the front well feeling very content with life.

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