Having a couple of weeks annual leave from work, I booked a holiday to Norfolk in the UK, it's a county that I've only ever visited briefly so I wanted to do some exploring. One of the places that I had on my "must visit" list was Horsey Windpump, as you probably know from my previous posts that I do love old windmills etc, but these may look like mills, but they are pumps and they stop the Norfolk Broads from flooding. Although a lot of these beautiful historic buildings are now no longer operational, they still stand there in various states as remnants of a by-gone era.
It was a hot day today, we got to the windpump before it opened as we did a trial run to a place we are hiring a boat from tomorrow and it turned out Horsey wasn't too far from where we'd visited.
This place is abundant in all sorts of wildlife, as I was taking some shots, swallows were swooping into the water to get a drink, dragon flies of all sizes were flying around you, and as I walked towards where we got a boat trip from, a snake crossed my path, now I'm not sure if it was a grass snake or an adder, reason being is that some of the adders on the broads don't have the usual diamond pattern and are a yellow colour, and grass snakes have a yellow collar, I can't recall seeing a yellow collar, but it happened so fast I didn't even get the chance to get a photo of it, although it was fantastic to see, my first wild snake.
We had to hang around for a boat trip that we had booked, I didn't take my camera on board as I wasn't sure how big the boat was or how busy it may have been, so all following shots was done using my Samsung S21, so not the best quality.
I really love this old windmill, the captain of the boat was saying that it is quite a famous windpump and has been on loads of pictures, although it is difficult to get to if you don't have a boat, I for one thing that this is full of character and wish I could photograph it some more, at least with my proper camera.
We saw lots of different birds while out on the boat, kestrels, king fishers, a hobby, buzzard, heron and some I forgot the names of, the boat trip was £11.00 for the hour, and it was worth every penny, the guy that runs that trips was brilliant, and open to any questions that you may have. Highly recommended.
So we landed back, and knowing the weather was going to be clear tonight I planned a milky way shot using the windpump as a point of interest, I love seeing shots with old buildings on and the stars in the background, anyhow I got in the car, and turned the headlights on, they aren't working, they work on the parking lights and the high beam, but the normal beam there's no light. I am hoping it's just a fuse, but will give the RAC a call for them to come and have a look at the car, however, tonight's rendezvous with the stars has been cancelled. I may have risked it if I'd known the roads a bit better, but I've only been on them once, so I thought safety first.
Thanks for reading my blog and I really hope you've enjoyed my adventures from today, I have hired a boat for tomorrow so I will be going on the broads myself, not sure how many pictures I will get as I'm driving, but I hope for something half decent.
All the best :-)