Norfolk Broads Sept 24

We had a very restful day walking amongst the Broads. Hundreds of years ago the area was heavily populated and when it was eventually deforested the locals turned to digging up peat for their fuel needs. This left large depressions all over the countryside and then the sea level rose and the depressions filled with water. Nowadays the broads cover thousands of acres of waterways and the English spend their time sailing around all the watercourses....."messing about" . Amazingly there were no mosquitoes....I don't know how the English have  managed to achieve this.....the area should be swarming with all sorts of nasties. (However, there's no shortage of wasps in this country....toutefois il ne manque pas de guêpes en Angleterre!!!) While walking about we managed to eat some blackberries which are fruiting at the moment. The plants are not as healthy as the ones we have in Oz..in fact they are rather miserable and the fruit not all that sweet. Of course blackberries are Not a weed here......I think the wet and cold winter rather knocks them about.

At first we went to a nature reserve and were hoping to go on a boat trip....however a school had booked the boat for the entire day...so we went onto Wroxham and took a boat trip there. Wroxham  is crawling with commercial boat operators so it is a rather charmless place. But the English love it and have built beautiful waterfront homes in certain areas....these homes go for horrendous prices.

In the evening we went to an Indian restaurant in a small village in the middle of the countryside. We had a nice meal there, but for some inexplicable reason we had to ask for the drinks list about six times as they didn't seem to understand what we were asking for--that was for our port. Earlier on we had ordered two mango lassis and nearly died when the bill arrived...£5 each!!!  Lassi(e) go home!!! Bloody ridiculous for a bit of yoghurt...should have asked first.  We shared their "special" chocolate cake which was made by a "masterchef" according to them.  Just another mud cake, but one piece was plenty for two!!!! Ross ate too much and was uncomfortable for the next 24 hours...