Friday 15 June 2018

Sugar factory

We often see sugar beet being grown, harvested, heaped in big piles at the sides of roads for collection and transported (in slightly  smelly large lorries) all around us since moving to north Norfolk and have seen the sugar factory in the distance.  Earlier in the week we decided to take our boat along the rivers to the factory which is built on either bank right out in the middle of nowhere.

And no wonder it is. The smell was awful. Fetid. Rotting. Smoky.
And noisy. Clanking, banging, these cranes were swinging things about.
We could not see any people from our low position on the river, as we went under various bridges carrying pipes across to "settlement ponds".
It all felt like some apoplectic movie and zombies could have popped out at any moment.
Our peek at the back door of this industry over, we returned down the river where we watched herons, grebes nesting, ducks and swans. We stopped to make a cup of tea on the river bank about 2 miles down stream and watched the fish on the river bed through about 5 feet of very clear water. 

Deep appreciation of all the work that goes into growing and manufacturing our British sugar. 


3 comments:

  1. They must have been having a big clean out as it's inbetween beet season. Love the smell once they get beet processing, it hangs over Bury St Edmunds for weeks.

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  2. I am having a go at growing some sugar beet this year

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