Back to boating on the Broads TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/5 - Page 15 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I'm catching up, so I'm going to post several times or I'll never remember what I wanted to say.
Oxburgh Hall is such a beautiful building. The grounds complement it nicely, too. The inside is equally beautiful, but I especially love the library with its secret door.
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This year's boat looks more spacious than the one you rented last year. The southern Broads seem awfully quiet, but you did get some awesome cow sightings along the way. Mooring did not seem like any fun at all.
We carried on past the nature reserve and through open countryside…
… but it wasn’t long before we were arriving back in Brundall, where we’d picked our boat up from originally. Now though we were passing through the place, and could see how big it was by the river…
It went on and on and on, and it looked like the sort of place where you needed to have some serious money to live here, given how big some of the boats were.
As we went along, we had various wildlife sightings along the way…
Perhaps the cutest was the geese with their goslings, another first for me to see goslings.
We were soon back out into the open countryside…
We even met some rowers along the way:
We agreed that this property was gorgeous, and I bet it cost a fortune!
We then found some older goslings…
A little further along, a shout went up from Mark of “cows” and I was straight outside to capture them the best I could. There was a huge herd of all sorts of breeds:
We were soon approaching Brammerton, and there appeared to be lots of mooring and a pub, so we figured we’d aim for here to spend the night, as it was about 45 minutes away from where we’d need to return the boat to the following morning.
Just to prove that I don’t just take photos of cows, when it comes to land animals, we also found a horse!
I’m not quite sure what freaked these geese off, but I managed to get a shot of them in flight.
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That looks like a posh place to live. Do you think those are 'regular' homes, or weekend/holiday homes?
I suspect, but I don't know for sure, that they're a mixture. I know there are holiday homes along the Broads, but I'm sure some are permanent residences as well.
Quite a relaxing afternoon - beautiful skies and nature. And cows!
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Tanya
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Monday 4 May – part three: please don’t fight the swan!
We carried on further along, and found ourselves inundated with rowers and canoeists, including a set of four rowers, who came alongside us with pretty much no warning!
Soon we were coming up to Postwick Viaduct, which was very surreal, given it appeared to be carrying a major road over the river!
I have to be honest, once we got past the viaduct, the journey was painfully boring. There just wasn’t really any scenery to admire, and it seemed to take forever to get to Norwich. The highlights were this country park, which wasn’t much…
… and this swan, who was demonstrating to a nearby dog why he would always win any fight. Thankfully, the dog backed off before anyone got hurt…
We did then meet a whole load of canoeists, and I mean a whole load!
Just as we started to finally approach Norwich, I managed to snag a shot of this guy!
The first thing we saw in the outskirts was, according to Google Maps, a paper mill, although personally I doubted it was still in use, it looked so derelict.
As we came into Norwich, we first saw the football ground for Norwich City…
…. then this monstrosity, which is actually a new development. To me, it’s not in keeping with its surroundings and I really did not like the look of it at all.
At least further along the riverbanks, they seemed to have thought about the developments a bit more, as they were much more attractive.
We passed by the old city walls…
…. and made our way past first one pedestrian bridge…
… and then another…
Mark managed to wake this swan up from their slumber, as they had to move out of the way of our boat…
Apparently that's the canoe-ing section of the water. After such solitary and nature, it's very strange to see all those buildings and bridges!
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Tanya
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That was a lot of kayakers! Wonder if there was a class of sorts, or if it's just one of the popular sections for kayaks? Certainly there are lots of birds to see! Glad the dog was smart enough not to take up a fight with that swan!
That was a lot of kayakers! Wonder if there was a class of sorts, or if it's just one of the popular sections for kayaks?
I honestly don't know - some people certainly looked, to me anyway (see what you think in the photos), more comfortable than others, so maybe it was a class.
Quote:
Certainly there are lots of birds to see! Glad the dog was smart enough not to take up a fight with that swan!
It was a relief to us, as I think that would have ended badly.
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