TheTraveler

 
A Day on the Norfolk Broads
By Frank Manning

I’d never been to Norfolk before but I had a good idea that that the Norfolk Broads wasn’t a group of women from the East of England.

Norfolk is a huge, flat area of low lying land given over to crop farming and, as I discovered soon after leaving the urban sprawl of the Midlands, completely unconnected to Britain’s motorway network.

We were heading for Wroxham, unofficial ‘capital’ of the Broads and home to plenty of boatyards offering vessels for hire. Our progress was slow as the quiet roads wound in and out of fields high with corn and wheat under an endless blue sky.

Mile after mile of road went by with only the barest hint of human existence. The Norfolk Broads are less than two hours from London but have yet to fall into the commuter zone. As we slowed to round a bend, two or three houses would reveal themselves followed by a country pub and a post box and then nothing. We had arrived and departed one of Norfolk’s sleepy villages in the blink of an eye. Eventually, the thickening buildings and road signs heralded our arrival at Wroxham.

We quickly realised that the small village was home to local magnate ‘Roy’. I parked the car behind a supermarket, Roy ’s of Wroxham, and walked down the main road past Roy ’s Toys then Roy ’s Garden Centre; in fact, Roy had opened a different shop for everything he could think of.

Our goal however lay just out of site behind Roy ’s empire. Water is never far away in Norfolk but it always seems to be hidden by a hedge or, in this case, Roy .

The boatyards and jetties are only a few hundred yards from the main road but could easily have been in another country. A seafaring chap with a grey beard and a captain’s cap sat on a low stool playing with bits of old rope. Delighted with the stereotype I asked him about hiring a boat and was soon in possession of the keys to a very smart day cruiser.

We all hopped aboard and he took me through the controls. Stick in the middle – go nowhere; push stick forward – go forward; pull stick back … it was as easy as that. We donned life jackets and chug-chugged off, carefully avoiding the other boats in the yard.

Soon we were in a shallow, tree-lined waterway sticking to the right as protocol required and staying within the 4 miles per hour limit. It’s questionable whether our boat would ever have exceeded the limit but with a tail wind or a freak current, who knows.

Elegant houses with private jetties passed us on either side and the gardens, which ran right down to the waters edge, were magnificent. Before long, the narrow stretch of water opened out into a huge lake. This was our first ‘Broad’.

The Broads, 120 navigable miles of shallow, slow moving water are a haven for wildlife and peace loving tourists. The large expanses were formed in medieval times when peat diggings became large, shallow lakes. Eventually, these Broads were joined to the rivers of the area by dykes and ditches.

Staying near to the shore we made our way around what we guessed was Wroxham Broad avoiding the remnants of sunken trees and dense undergrowth. Yachts and other sailed vessels hove to and fro all over the lake mingling with the more courageous day-trippers.

Wroxham is not the largest of the Broads but it is thought by many to be the most picturesque. The Broads area in general is a striking blend of wildlife and landscape and as such is a protected area. Many species of bird make their homes on or around the water with small troupes of ducks emerging from the reed beds or swans drifting elegantly in between boats.

Once around the Broad and our time was running out so we made our way back into the ‘narrows’ and retraced our route. Without realising I drove (is it drove? Or steered or, indeed, captained?) the boat into a flock of huge geese. They instantly took to the air and flew low over our heads like a squadron of bombers.

You get the feeling on the Broads that you really are close to nature!

Back to TheTraveler.