Up at a reasonable hour we had a quick breakfast and drove out to Wroxham, North East of Norwich.

Wroxham turns out to be a fairly popular central point on the Broads, a town which appears to make its living from boat hire and tour operators - they are everywhere.

Good news: the sun was out, so today was going to be a beautiful day for boating on the Broads.

Bad news: everyone else within an hours drive of Wroxham had the same idea - I really wanted to get a picnic cruiser for the day (they come equipped with a big cabin, WC and gally on board) - I was pipped at the post by 10 minutes and had to settle for a pokey wooden 4 stroke "day cruiser" - it was rather uncomfortable to drive at first, until I got familiar with the control response and drove standing up, like I had done on Coniston and Windermere previously.



The Norfolk Broads are quite something else - a collection of naturally formed slow-flowing rivers connecting up with a series of man made shallow lakes (broads) - it's hard to tell where some of the broads start and rivers end, but it's still beautiful, all of it.

Complete with it's own set of bird life (swans, ducks, grey herons, etc) and amazing houses built right on the edge of the water, pictures do it the most justice of all (apart from being there, of course!).



We puttered our way down past Wroxham and Salhouse Broads, Horning Reach and into Straith Rand-something - we moored for lunch at Straith Rand-something and then started back home.

I had yet another Arthur Ransome illustration of the Broads (from Coote Club, I think) and it turned out to be one of Horning Reach - something we didn't discover until we were motoring home! We stopped again and I jumped out to take a photo of the reach from the same aspect as the illustration - a truely amazing feeling :)



An hour or so later and we were back in Wroxham, arms and faces tanned or burned (Kaye is sore) and after buying a few postcards and a spoon from the local gift shop, we drove back to the hotel for a well earned rest!