Make sure you pay at the campsite if you are wanting to launch your own craft from there. Alternatively, you can hire canoes from the campsite for your trip. https://www.outneymeadow.co.uk/canoeing/ All along the Waveney valley there are remnants of the industrial significance of this area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Navigation to Bungay was improved following an Act of Parliament in 1670. The river had been navigable from Great Yarmouth to Bungay before this, but over the years, due to neglect, it had become obstructed and clogged up with weed and silt so boats couldn’t get beyond Beccles. As a result, goods had to be transported by land, which was more expensive and brought hardship further upstream, especially to Bungay. The waterway improvements included building four locks at Wainford, Ellingham, Shipmeadow and Geldeston. Improved navigation brought considerable trading wealth to Bungay until this privately owned navigation closed in 1934. Ditchingham Dam, the Neolithic long barrow on Broome Heath (to the north of Ditchingham Dam conservation area), is evidence of prehistoric settlement. The discovery of Roman urns in the village in 1864 suggests that there was also some settlement here during the Roman occupation. The yellow water lily is also known as brandy bottle, due to the scent, which is like the dregs of wine. Once the lily finishes flowering the ovary swells to a pod the size of a tennis ball, detaches itself from the stem and floats downstream. Eventually it sinks to the river bed where it takes root. In the summer you can see banded demoiselles damselflies flitting along the river edges, briefly resting on the lilies. The males compete on the wing for breeding territories and then court a female with a special flight display. The males have a distinctive black band across the width of their wings and are metallic blue in colour, while the females’ wings are transparent and their bodies are green with a bronze tip. The word portage comes from the French ‘Porter’ and means the carrying of boats and supplies overland between two waterways or around an obstacle to navigation.