The drive from Great Yarmouth to Wroxham on a very popular day for boating and to hire a day-boat to cruise through Wroxham Broad, Salhouse and then to stop at Horning for lunch before back home again as 152 Sri Lankan refugees are picked up off of Canada with investigation started as to where they came from. The UK is disappointed over Botha’s intransigence, misses out on extradition of Republicans from Dublin and the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall was marked today
Slept OK again and Daniel and Della slept on until it was nearly time for breakfast. The rest of us made up for it and we still managed to get down by 8.00am. Today we hurried out to the car afterwards and drove to Wroxham on a fine and sunny day. The Fineway electric cruisers were all taken and so were the others close by, but we went to the other side of Wroxham Bridge and found a boat free at Loynes. It cost a rather expensive £38 per day, but the crowds were growing and the day-boats disappearing fast.
We cruised under Wroxham Bridge and had a brief look around Bridge Broad, where my family used to hire a house boat when I was a boy. There were lily pads and good fishing for tench then, but it is now developed fully for moorings. We then stopped at a Wroxham riverside café for our morning break and were staggered to meet Daniel’s ex-school friend Jonathan Bloom and family, who had trailed their boat to Norfolk for a holiday. Then we left for our cruise, Daniel taking the helm for most of the way. Through Wroxham Broad until we went to Salhouse for some shopping. Also stopped at Horning for lunch and had to elbow our way into very restricted moorings on this very congested stretch. Then the trip back again, arriving at Wroxham at 4.30pm. Even then there were more tourists anxious to take the boat out again and a queue waiting. Drove back in time for the children’s tea, but as Di supervised it, and Daniel took a walk, I drove out along the front to see the Nelson monument. Most disappointed to find that it has been completely encircled by a drab industrial site, when my old guide books showed it in glorious isolation in the open. Still time for us to swim after tea and before Daniel joined us for dinner. News today was of doubts as to whether a group of 152 Sri Lankan ‘refugees’ were actually abandoned off Canada by Indian ships, as they have claimed, or come from Germany in a planned operation to avoid immigration controls. UK maritime agencies and Canadian authorities are joined by German interests in investigating the claims. UK Foreign Office statements today expressed disappointment on the lack of progress in Botha’s speech, but President Reagan has welcomed the idea, proposed by the South African government, of an African Conference, but SA and the US defer on whether these talks would cover ‘internal’ matters, such as an early end to apartheid. Another UK extradition warrant has been proved invalid in respect of Republican prisoners in Dublin, to further fuel extreme Protestant scorn on the Anglo/Irish pact. Guns and ammunition have been found in Dublin in packages sent from the United States. The 25th ‘anniversary’ of the construction of the Berlin Wall was ‘celebrated’ in Germany today and it seems likely to stay up for another 25 years as well.