River Little Ouse is just so laid back...

Ten Mile Bank to Norfolk Fen, River Little Ouse, 10 miles 0 locks

No locks again.  The last lock we actually did ourselves was on the River Nene!  It is going to be quite a while till we do another one.  Well I did a rough itinerary for the rest of the summer today.. we have family visiting a couple of times this year, and I need to know where I am going to be when they come.. so the next lock for Vic to do will be Brownshill Staunch Lock in a couple of weeks time, which is past Earith on the Gt Ouse.  The next lock that we will be at though is the one before that, Hermitage Lock but it is manned..

Anyway, pulling the pins this morning it was a good 3 miles upstream on the Gt Ouse before the turn off to the left for our visit to the Little Ouse or Brandon Creek as it is often known.  There is a fine pub on the junction, The Ship,  with some great moorings..

Tempted to stop there on Sunday on our way back,  I must phone them to see if they do a Sunday Roast!

The source of the River Little Ouse is interesting.  It rises near Redgrave in Suffolk.  Only a few metres away another river, The Waveney has it’s source too.  The Waveney flows west while the Little Ouse flows east.  These rivers form the border for much of their length of Norfolk and Suffolk, and but for those few metres separating the two springs, Norfolk would be an island!

I loved the remoteness of this river.. total isolation and quiet.  Small pockets of farming communities with such names as Burnt Fen, Brandon Bank and Botany Bay.. Some odd looking stuff on this river too!!.. 

And this one.. errrrrrr I think it was a boat, although we had a good discussion as to whether it was an old lorry.. maybe someone reading this has the answer?

Kingfishers, oyster catchers, grebe.. oh and a black swan..

All enjoying the peace and quiet.  We moored at the GOBA moorings at Norfolk Fen this afternoon.  Time for the plank as we could not get into the side here, but that is no worry, we are used to using the plank.  It did mean that Lucy could go swimming once again too.. One thing I mustn't let her do is jump in and out of the water.. as long as she can ‘walk in’ then she is allowed in!  The rest of the afternoon was spent between doing the rough itinerary and fishing… oh and keeping an eye on the herd of cows that came down to the moorings for a drink.. Ha they were most put out that we had moored in ‘their’ spot too!!

A couple of narrowboats came by heading back to the main river, they warned of weed further on nearer Brandon.  It is so quiet here that we could hear their boats for some 15 minutes after they had gone by and out of sight.

I hope the weed isn’t too bad tomorrow as we make our way to the end of the river navigation at Brandon..