Irstead and Barton Turf

It wasn’t long this morning before the sun broke through and we were promised a beautiful day. 

With a packed lunch sorted and the car packed I drove us to Irstead Staithe via Horning and Neatishead.  Hamish and I settled down to watch the world go by, reading and eating.  Several people made a fuss of my boy and we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the moorings.

After lunch we moved on to Barton church where I was hoping to find some graves with the name Allard on them.  Unfortunately I was unsuccessful but it was a lovely church and Hamish and I had a good look round …

From here we moved on to Barton Turf Staithe which was remarkably quiet.  A couple of people were fishing and a private boat was moored.

I’d been online and found that I should get signal here so that I could use my 3 dongle and thankfully it worked well.  I sat in the car with my laptop and got three days of blogging done!

Hamish had been a bit neglected in the walking department today so after a quick cuppa back at the RV we went for a walk by the river.  The sun was just going down as we got back to the moorings …

Foggy Start

When Hamish had his final trip to a hedge last night it was thick with fog and we woke this morning to find it still here. After a lazy morning waiting for it to clear I was finally rewarded by some lovely sunshine. Throwing together a sandwich for lunch, I packed the car and set off for St Benet’s Abbey where I parked up and went for a walk with Hamish. The cows were between us and the cross so we went across to the river and watched the boats passing by while catching up with various things on my phone. The campsite is great but the signal is lousy!

We wandered back to the car and sat out enjoying lunch before noticing a few raindrops. I’d left the top window open in the van and so decided to pop back and close it before moving on to How Hill. Both places are very close to the site and so not too far to drive. We walked across the grass to the river and strolled along the moorings before making our way back to the car. We were just in time because it very soon began to rain quite heavily.

Back to the campsite for a very welcome cuppa and one very tired dog …

Visiting Crocus

The plan was to have breakfast in the Wayfarers at Ludham Bridge but they were closed so we met in Potter Heigham and ate in the Flour and Bean which is part of Lathams. It was then time to see Nick who has been working on Crocus. She’s been stripped right back which was quite scary to see but positive things are beginning to happen and Nick has told us he’s working to an Easter deadline for getting her on the water. Exciting!!

When we left her we made our way to Thurne Dyke, parked on the roadside and walked down to the main river. We went almost all the way to Thurne mouth then turned around and walked back. The weather was glorious it’s hard to believe it’s the end of September.

After saying goodbye to the boys we drove back to Ludham Bridge where I turned into the campsite and they continued on to Wroxham. Roys was calling!!

Off to Norfolk for an Autumn Break

The motor home left Cornwall for Bedfordshire at the end of the kids’ summer holiday and so I set off from home with Hamish in the Mini. After two nights in Luton three vehicles made their way across to the Norfolk Broads Caravan Club site which will be my base for the next three weeks. Jamie and Phill helped me set up camp and then they booked into the Travelodge at Acle. In the evening we went to the Wayford Bridge Hotel for a meal. It’s a place we normally like visiting but I doubt we’ll be eating there again. It’s been completely refurbished and quite frankly I wasn’t impressed. The walls were covered in shiny white tiles which made it look like a public toilet!! There was no link to the area ie the Broads as there were airplanes hanging from the ceiling! The food is now very expensive – it was okay but nothing spectacular. The best part of the evening was meeting up with our friends Steve and Lisa who were accompanied by Steve’s son and his girlfriend. We sat in the lounge and had a lovely long catch-up on news. It was quite foggy in places as the boys dropped me back at the site.