Canoeing on the Broads

Come Wednesday we had Canadian Canoes hired to paddle along the Broads. I was promised that they would paddle so I could sit back. We had two canoes, did boys and girls. I went into the three- man, with David upfront,...

 ...and Kit steering behind.

Girls were in the other canoe.

And as you would expect from women drivers....

 As you can see, the first part of the journey was very quiet. No other boats around. Just peaceful sound of paddling.

 About half way through our journey we came to a pub, the Rising Sun, perfectly positioned for the boat traffic.

So we moored up as best we could next to the no mooring signs.

 And hopped up for a drink.

Someone had to be left behind with the boats, so that fell to young Kit, looking the perfect Victorian urchin left on his own

 

But on the bright side that freed up his dad for a drink.

 Then back to the boats to continue, now needing to be a little wary of some much larger boats coming the other way. And looking out for some ominous clouds too.

On top of the big wildlife - swans, geese, herons, we also passed tons of damsel-flies. Just very hard to photograph these fleeting glints of blue while on the move.
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And at this point the rain came down and the photos stopped. When I say rain, I mean it bucketed down. We were five very wet people by the time we paddled in, having made the major error of trying to shelter under the trees until it blew over. It didn't blow over. We just took longer getting wet. And I wasn't going to risk my camera in that much precipitation.