Stanley Ferry

Thursday 27^th July

Left Castleford this morning in reasonable weather and headed up the Calder to Woodnook Lock, here we left the river to join the Wakefield branch of the Aire and Calder Navigation. On our arrival at the lock we discovered a boat waiting to exit the lock onto the canal, however they were unable to operate the gates for some reason and were waiting for Canal and Rivers to come down to sort out whatever was wrong. I don’t know how long they had been stuck there but there were also nine boats waiting to come down. The lady from CRT arrived and went to reset the lock manually, she released the trapped boat and squeezed in as many of the boats waiting to come down as she could, the locks here are large and she managed to fit in six of them!.

Whilst we were waiting another boat turned up to go up with us and we made our way into the lock. Whilst waiting we had been warned that part of the problem with the lock was causing the paddles to open fully straight away (normally they open gradually as the lock fills), this left us feeling a little nervous so both boats stayed well back just in case, sure enough the paddles opened instantly and the water rushed in pushing us hard against the other boat, fortunately we both had fenders down so there was no damage apart from losing some of the new paint.

Once through we continued the short distance to the next lock (Kings Road) and moored up at the very quiet moorings just above. We had a short walk up into Altofts village but have to say there is not much to see there.

Friday 28^th July

A wet start today so got on with a few more jobs tidying up some of the internal wiring. Again the weather soon cleared so we made our way up to Stanley Ferry, it’s always busy here but we managed to find a spot just before the services, Lucia went off to empty the toilet whilst I waited with the intention of moving onto the water point once the boat there had moved off.

Time passed by and I remember thinking Lucia was taking a while, however I let Scruff off and passed the time away chatting to other boaters around. Eventually I started to wonder what was taking so long and noticed the lady off the boat at the water point running towards the service block and shouting “are you ok?”, I wandered up to find that Lucia was locked in the toilet sluice and the pump out cupboard, and as you can imagine the smell in there is rather unpleasant. A number of people around, each tried their keys with no success, one chap went to great lengths explaining how the levers had all dropped, and the lock was well and truly stuck!

The only thing left to do was call CRT to see if they could come out and help, having gone through the usual menus I finally got through to customer services who then put me through to the local maintenance yard, the chap that answered the phone seemed to have a problem understanding what was wrong until Lucia shouted so loudly thorough the door “what part of my being stuck in here do you not understand” that he quickly decided he had better send someone out.

I decide to move the boat and fill up with water as we waited, then I decided to have another go at the door, a sharp kick was all it needed and the door opened, the lock was not fully closed otherwise she may still be there! CRT finally turned up removed the lock as we moved up to the mooring.

We decided to have a walk up into Stanley, I have been here a number of times playing rugby but I still couldn’t find the ground! We thought we would go and have a look around the church but couldn’t find that either because it had been demolished.

We awoke to fine weather on Saturday so decided to walk along the Trans Pennine path up to Heath a couple of miles from our mooring.

Kings Arms, Heath

Heath is a remarkable place, and well worth a visit, with a large green in the centre of the village surrounded by five (?) large halls and lots of older houses. There is also a Tea Room and a pub, The Kings Arms, which boasts still of having gas lights and a range of beers from the Osset brewery. I have been here several times and can recommend the food as it’s always been good, however on this occasion it was just the Tea Rooms for us.

We then walked across Heath Common and into Wakefield, where, as usual I sat with Scruff whilst Lucia toured the shops, we were sat around so long that I thought people were going to throw coins at us!

Returning to the boat we noticed that the water level had dropped by around a foot and the boat was stuck on the bottom leaning away from the bank so we decided to move to the moorings further down where the water was deeper.

Sunday 29^th July

Whilst we had been out and about on Saturday we had a visit from Alan Brice and he left his number for us to arrange to meet up on Sunday morning, he arrived with Joanne and their dog Tilley and we decided to go for a walk to look at the new Hydro Scheme at the weir at Kirkthorpe, this is different to the type we had seen previously as it consists of a vertical axis turbine (whatever that is), and it provides enough power for 800 homes, it’s worth having a look at www.barnenergy.co.uk where all is explained.

Alan's picture of our mooring at Stanley Ferry

It was great catching up with Alan and Joanne because It’s a few years since we last met and we hope to meet up again soon.

Later in the day we were also joined by Paul and Steph again enjoying the company and catching up.

We had a walk round the moorings and had a meal in the Stanley Ferry pub, this was incredibly busy but as we had to sit outside with Scruff a table was easily found.

Monday morning brought the news that Woodnook Lock was totally inoperable and may be out of action for a few days, I checked with CRT and they allowed us another 48 hours on the moorings. We had another walk into Wakefield (more sitting around!), whilst there I had an email saying that the lock will be open Tuesday morning for 2 hours and a further 2 in the afternoon, so we have now moved back down to Kings Road lock ready for an early start to move onto Lemonroyd on our way back up to Leeds.

Kings Road Lock

Kings Road Moorings