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Saturday 10 April 2010

Defeated by the Slaughters

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OK I give up. This is the photo I’ve been trying to emulate. A haunting image of the remains of some of the 13 wherries on Rockland Broad. Or rather within Rockland Broad. The wherries were deliberately sunk, meaning that their rotting timbers only emerge at low tide. They go by the dramatic name of The Slaughters - except that they never look quite as dramatic as in this photo. I know I was there at low tide this evening because a hire crusier was comically stuck on the putty in the middle of the Broad. (“Give us a tow mate,” they asked, as I paddled by in the canoe.) I find the timbers fine – you can see photos in my first blog entry – but they are just never as clearly exposed to the elements as in this wonderful shot, borrowed from the Wherryman’s Way leaflet. Still it was a good night to be on Rockland. I went down Rockland Dyke to the Broad, across and up Short Dyke to the Yare, past the old Strumpshaw pumping house and then back down the Fleet. All in all a good workout on a still Saturday evening.

* I see Simon Barnes has got the canoe bug. Read today’s The Times column here.

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