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Less than two miles from the centre of Norwich, Whitlingham Country Park offers some of the best of Norfolk's countryside on the city's doorstep.

The first stop on the nature tour is at the slipway. This is where the many watersports which take part at the Great Broad launch themselves into the water.

During the summer months you can see hundreds of people having a go at windsurfing, sailing and kayaking with courses operated by Norfolk County Council.

Making the Great Broad

The Great Broad at Whitlingham Park has been created through extensive gravel extraction. The work began in 1995 with the quarry removing around 220,000 tonnes of material a year.

The gravel was carried on a conveyor belt to the processing plant where it was sorted into different grades of sand and sizes of gravel.

For the quarry to extract the material they had three large electric pumps, pumping out 200 litres a water a second, operating 24- hours-a-day.

Mute swans and signets on the edge of Whitlingham Great Broad

When the quarrying had finished they turned off the pumps and the water filled up due to the natural ground water level.

Nature has quickly reclaimed the area to create a new wildlife habitat in this part of Norfolk with a high concentration of insects, wildflowers and birdlife.

To the west of the Great Broad, you can see the ever-changing skyline of Norwich.

Gravel from Whitlingham has been used in a number of major building projects in the city such as Castle Mall, The Forum and more recently, the redevelopment of the old Nestlé site into a major new shopping facility for the area.

To move onto the second stage of the nature walk, just follow the pathway east along the edge of the Great Broad.