WALK & WILDLIFE WATCHING

The Norfolk Broads offer a unique landscape within the UK, but they do not manage and maintain themselves. This day is designed to show you two completely different approaches to the conservation and sustainable management of the Norfolk Broads. Our suggestions will take you on a tour of Salhouse Broad; to lunch at a local pub, home to one of the UK’s best known independent breweries.

Start: Salhouse Broad car park, off the B1140 near Wroxham
Ordnance Survey Explorer map OL40; grid reference TG319150
SatNav postcode NR13 6RX

For details of events taking place at Salhouse Broad, or to book a trip to Hoveton Great Broad Nature Reserve see details on www.salhousebroad.org.uk

The Fur & Feather Inn opens at 11.30am Monday to Saturday, and at 12 noon on Sunday, while the Brewery Shop is open from 10.30am to 4.30pm all year round (11.30am to 4.30pm on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays)

  • There are public lavatories located at Salhouse Broad and customer toilets with baby changing facilities at the Fur & Feather Inn.

Our recommended itinerary is as follows:

• Drive to Salhouse Broad car park, situated on a minor road off the B1140 between Acle and Wroxham

• Privately owned, Salhouse Broad was created not through peat digging as the other Broads were, but by sand and gravel abstraction. It has an active group of Friends who help to manage the Broad and organise a programme of events throughout the summer months to encourage visitors to enjoy the varied bird life around the area.

• There are a variety of habitats; oak woodland, wet alder carr woodland, marshy sedge beds, sandy heath, grassland and open water, all of which you pass through as you walk from the car park down through the woods to the Broad’s edge
• This is an all-season delight, with bluebells and lesser celandines in the Spring, peacock butterflies and banded demoiselle damselflies in the Summer, hawthorn, holly, parasol mushrooms and inkcaps in the Autumn, with wildfowl sheltering on the Broad in the Winter
• You can enjoy refreshment from the ice cream boat plying its trade around this part of the Norfolk Broads, and perhaps take the Water Taxi which runs Sunday to Thursday from Easter to mid-September across to Hoveton Great Broad Nature Trail, not accessible from land, a true wilderness within the Broads National Park
• Make your way to the Fur & Feather Inn at Woodbastwick for lunch, turning left out of the Broad car park. Attached to the Woodforde’s Brewery, this iconic Norfolk inn serves great beer and food in a picturesque setting. With a regularly changing menu offering a combination of classic and more imaginative dishes, including an innovative selection for vegetarians, there is bound to be something for everyone!
• The Brewery Shop is also worth a visit after lunch, selling the full range of Woodforde’s beers in bottles and boxes, in addition to a range of gifts and local produce. You can even arrange a tour of the brewery

What Am I?

An Australian species, the only pair on the Norfolk Broads live on Salhouse Broad.

BLACK SWAN

An Australian species, the only pair on the Norfolk Broads live on Salhouse Broad. Approximately 110 to 140 cm in length, they are easily recognisable from their black plumage and bright red bill.

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