Mystic Horizon - Day One

I had remembered that I need to change trains at Norwich for the Great Yarmouth branch to get to Acle, and not the Sheringham branch for Hoveton & Wroxham as is more usual.  However, I had not taken on board the number of stops before Acle came up neither did I really take much notice of the stations as we came in and departed – all of a sudden I thought ‘This is it’ and got up took my suitcase and only found that I was in fact at Lingwood (one stop before Acle) as the train departed.

What a start to the trip!  Fortunately the station information board had the number of a local taxi firm and within 10 minutes I was on my way by road to Acle – via Budgens to get the basics.  Upon arriving at Horizon Craft, a warm welcome awaited – much like coming back to old friends, good banter, and laughter all round.  I was shown to my boat Mystic Horizon 1 and very nice it was too.

After a quick show of the various things to be found on the boat I was off and heading up the Bure.  The Corsican and Magellan were about and I had tried to call Simon with regard to where they may be, having got voice mail I thought they must be in either Horning or Salhouse – two famous ‘not spots’ for phone signal on the Broads.  As it turned out they were at neither but more on this in the following days tale.


So it was I stopped on initially at St. Benet’s where I unpacked my case and made the boat ship shape and had a coffee.  My plan then was to carry on up the Bure taking a looksie in at Malthouse, Horning and Salhouse to see if The Corsican and Magellan were about – they were not, so I made the decision at Salhouse to carry on into Wroxham where I would find a mooring hopefully in Barnes Brinkcraft’s yard over night and be able to head on in to Wroxham for Fish & Chips for supper.  

As I came past the riverside gardens of the Barton House Railway, I noticed they were lighting the oil lamps and preparing things – gosh that was a rare thing, I mean it is something like the third weekend before hell freezes over they run trains here and this was to be a night time running event to boot.  I arrived at Barnes Brinkcraft and found just how easy to handle the Broom 29 is – while high sided with no wind one can really get into tight spots and turn in her length.

All secure it was time to head on in to Wroxham, whereupon I decided to go to the ‘Chinese Fish & Chip shop’ and very nice it was too – freshly cooked and back on the boat it was lovely to sit hearing the steam train whistle, bell in the signal box and hoot of the less emotive diesel loco on he narrow gauge railway. I could not see proceedings, but hearing them was nice – albeit marred by Trinidad (from Richardson’s Stalham yard) who had turned up at dusk and now at 8:45pm had been running their engine all the time.  This actually went on until almost 10pm my only conclusion being that they needed to do this to get power for their television/heating.

I had an early night and found the bed to be very comfortable, large and the forward cabin on this boat also very spacious.  Indeed for a 29ft x 10ft 9” boat she was well laid out, the only gripe being the canvas ‘curtain’ one has to use to give privacy and spate the living accommodation from the raised cockpit.  Having guess this would make the saloon area dark and not very airy I bought the cheapest flat sheet I could find before going away and put this up a the glass doors at the rear of the cockpit, thus no one could see in and the saloon felt a lot more open and airy.

First days are never full of things to report, take over the boat head to your mooring and only the next day do things really get going as it were, but I have tried to capture a lot this time around from places I have been, my opinions and chatting to the camera together with some pretty scenes and some new and unusual camera views for the Blog.  I hope you will enjoy as the tale unfolds.