Messing About On The River

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Boats are cool, as someone who's lived a lot of his life away from the sea, there's a mystery about boats and boating, it's something that other people do. I broke this idea a while away when I went on a boating holiday in East Anglia.

If you're going on a boating trip in the UK there's a few options inland, with England having a network of canals that meander through the countryside. There's also places like the Lake District, but these don't offer much of a 'journey'. But then there's the Norfolk Broads...

The Broads is an area of East Anglia, in the east of England, that is traditionally farming country, but has a network of rivers lakes and waterways, that are perfect to explore at your leisure. Many people enjoy hiring boats for a few days, or longer, and exploring the many villages, castles, windmills and pubs along the way.

It's a flat landscape, when we went it was April, out of tourist season, and for the most part it was a serene experience, away from the hustle and bustle of normal life.

We began our journey at Wroxham, where we picked up our boat, we then spent our first night at Salhouse Broad, before winding down through fields and windmills to Acle Bridge, where we moored up at the pub. On the way back we detoured up through Barton Broad, staying the night at Sutton Staithe. We returned to Wroxham, but not before staying the evening at a place called Horning.

It was a great experience driving a boat, something i'd never done at this level, and having to navigate, around other river users, mooring the boat was a particular challenge, but somehow the boat came through the week unscathed!