Boats in the Broads

Instead of buying each other birthday presents this year, G, M and I decided to hire a boat for the day on the Broads. We were so lucky that we booked for today, as it was very warm with blue skies this morning and lovely fluffy clouds this afternoon (I checked my weather station yesterday and we'd already had more rain to 8th June than we had for the whole of May). Years ago G and M had two family holidays on the Broads, so they're happy to do the 'driving', which is a good job as I'm rubbish on boats - they did a fantastic job! We sailed from Wroxham up the River Bure and moored for our picnic lunch in Ranworth Broad. Some gorgeous goslings and ducklings visited to see if we'd give them anything, we didn't (see Extra collage). 

On the way back we moored to go round the Hoveton Great Broad Nature trail, part of the Bure Marshes nature reserve managed by Natural England. The trail is about 1km long, is free to enter and is only accessible by boat. It's really a delightful little gem. We saw damselflies, dragonflies, and caterpillars (see Extra collage), but the highlight was spotting over the other side of Hoveton Great Broad a bird of prey diving for prey. With their binoculars, G and M could see it was an Osprey, what a fabulous treat! There was a very knowledgeable lady from Natural England who we chatted to and who confirmed one had been seen in the area. We also saw an unusual plane, which M wondered if it was a Galaxy (extra).

What a wonderful way to spend the day and spend time with friends, thanks for organising G and for being the Captain M.