Into Lancashire

Wednesday 30th August 2017
We left Kildwick after welcoming Lucia's oldest friend, Jackie, on board. We had an easy run into Skipton, negotiating 6 swing bridges, arriving early afternoon.
We were lucky enough to find a space on the 3 day moorings fitting in perfectly with our plans.
The following day we decided to visit Skipton Castle, it's been along time since we last called here, this was another Castle held under siege whilst being occupied by the royalists during the civil war. Just like Pontefract it suffered a battering at the hands of the parliamentarian forces and evidence of this can be seen in the upper floors. The original walls (up to 4 metres thick) can be seen, above these they are much thinner this is where they were rebuilt, back to the original height, after the siege. The royalist army held out for 3 years until an agreement was achieved allowing them to leave unharmed and they marched down the high street before dissipating into the countryside. Cromwell allowed Lady Anne Clifford to rebuild the castle but the walls had to be much thinner and the roof had to be incapable of supporting canons.
We had arranged to join Harriets wedding party for a pre wedding meal at the Red Lion at Burnsall,  Harriets dad Paul had kindly offered to collect us and drive us back to the boat that evening and we had a great time and an excellent meal.  The Red Lion has changed a lot since our last visit, it has been extensively extended and is well worth a visit.
Friday 1st September 2017
Today was Harriet's wedding day and we awoke to fine sunshine. Following a walk around the market we returned to ready ourselves for the wedding. We retraced or steps back to the Red Lion by means of a taxi and had a wonderful day celebrating the wedding of Harriet and Sam. Congratulations to them and a big thank you to for allowing us to be part of their special day.
Saturday 2nd September 2017
Anna and Nat brought Scruff back to the boat having kindly looked after her for the last couple of days.
We left Skipton around lunchtime and enjoyed a lovely cruise to the bottom of Bank Newton locks, this part of the canal runs along the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and follows the A65 up to the first lock at Gargrave. We have stopped here many times so decided to press on through the village and its 5 locks reaching Bank Newton at around 4pm, any other time we would have continued through but there are currently limited opening times due to a badly leaking lock, this requires a lock keeper to be in attendance as you pass through, so this will have to wait until the morning.

Late summer at Bank Newton

We awoke to another reasonable day making ourselves ready for a 9.30 start through the locks, fortunately one of Pennine Cruisers hire boats arrived to join us on our passage up the locks, its always much easier with two boats and crew and we soon arrived at the top of the 6 lock flight.
The scenery here is typical Yorkshire Dales at its best and provides a tranquil back drop for the locks as they climb up a wooded hill with short pounds in between each one.
The scenery just gets better and better  as the canal meanders through the glacial drumlins that give this area its unique atmosphere, the bends here are almost 180 degrees and its strange to see boats travelling less than 100 yards across the clefts between the hills.
It was along this stretch 10 years before that I was treated to the site of a mini electrical storm between the legs of my cycling companion, John Lockwood. We were cycling from Liverpool to Leeds and John had decided to wear some nylon shorts and had created a large static charge as he cycled along, discharging it when he stopped due to severe chafing!
This area is true walking country and the Pennine Way joins the towpath at East Marton, with its rare two arched bridge and famous old church.
The twisting continues right up to Greenberfield Locks, these have to be the locks with the finest location on the canal network, the three locks bring you up to the summit of the canal so it is down hill all the way from here. We were again joined by the boat and crew we came up the previous locks with, the crew were from Norfolk and I couldn't resist asking how many locks they had in their home county!
We progressed through and waived goodbye to Yorkshire as we crossed over the border just before our mooring at Foulridge.
Once moored we had a walk round this charming village, we followed a route through to the large summit reservoir, the largest of five built to keep the canal supplied with water. We returned to the boat, following the course of Foulridge canal tunnel.
Autumn is now beginning to feel very close and the nights are becoming much cooler and longer, so we lit a fire and settled back for the evening.
Monday 4th September 2017
Foulridge Tunnel - the eastern portal of the tunnel lies 50 yds from the wharf and entry is controlled by traffic lights, when travelling from this end the lights go to green on the hour and remain on for 10 minutes allowing a maximum of 20 minutes to get through as the green lights are on the half hour at the western end.

Inside Foulridge Tunnel

The tunnel is approximately 1 mile long and is full width so it is an easy run through. The tunnel is famous for its story of a cow falling into the canal at one end then swimming through to the other, it survived, reputedly with the help of some brandy to revive it.
We progressed onto the top of the Barrowford flight (7 locks in total) to find our friends from Norfolk waiting to go down so we again joined them and quickly passed through. At one of the locks Lucia met a chap called Bob with his Border Collie, Meg. He invited us to call in to see a restored steam engine in Burnley.
The bottom of the locks marks the start of the long pound to Blackburn so cruising here is easy with no stopping until we reached our mooring at Weavers Triangle at Burnley. As we approached Burnley embankment we over took a widebeam hire boat, they passed through Barrowford locks just in front of us, the crew were visitors from Switzerland, just what they though of our country is anybody's guess as they negotiated their way past discarded bags, settees and road works barriers all dumped in the canal.
Burnley embankment is worthy of a mention as it passes through the town sixty feet above and has an aqueduct over the main road (Yorkshire Street) in its centre. During the war stop planks were placed at each end and the channel drained to protect the town from being flooded during a bombing raid.
The embankment is now regarded as one of the wonders of the waterways.

Bobs Engine

Having moored at Weavers Triangle we wandered down to Oak Mount Mill, just off the towpath about 1/4 mile past our mooring, there was no sign of Bob so we retraced our steps to the boat, on the way back we noticed the bizarre sight of a girl sat with a sewing machine, powered by a bike just by the towpath, by an amazing coincidence she was featured on Radio 4's Front Row programme that same evening, she was part of the Fabrications Festival and was visiting several towns along the canal.
We continued past the boat to visit the Weavers Triangle museum, its only small but interesting and during our visit we were met by Bob who said he would open up the Steam Engine house for us, so off we went back to Oak Mount Mill.
We entered the engine house to be greeted by a large twin cylinder engine that used to power the mill, 850 looms at one time,and as ran until 1979. The boiler was removed and the boiler house demolished but the engine house and its engine were left to decay, thankfully the engine was rescued and restored, now driven by an electric motor, but is still an impressive sight when running.
We thanked Bob and made a donation to the restoration fund, Bob thanked us in return by presenting us with a large bag of tomatoes.
Tuesday 5th September 2017
Woke up to torrential rain this morning, however the forecast was an improving outlook so we set off on what was to be a long day to Riley Green, the other side of Blackburn. The rain continued for another hour or so but it was quite warm so travelling was not too bad. Just outside Burnley we passed the widebeam with the Swiss crew on their way back to Silsden.

Over the motorway

Gannow Tunnel

This side of Burnley the canal runs close to the M65 and a mile or so from our start we crossed over the motorway on an aqueduct, just around the corner we entered Gannow tunnel, a fairly  short and wide hole through the hill to emerge at a bridge over which the motorway crosses the canal!





The route continues hugging the edge of the valley until we reach Church, the halfway point between Leeds and Liverpool 63 3/4 miles from each end.

The Halfway Marker

The canal threads under and over the motorway, quite apt through all these weaving towns, before reaching the outskirts of Blackburn, we had not seen a boat all day until we arrived here, and as they were travelling in the opposite direction this meant that all of the six locks in Blackburn should be in our favour.
Most of them were but one or two leaky ones had to be refilled but we soon passed through and onto our mooring at Riley Green, not much to report here as it is a quite rural spot.
The following morning the chap in the boat behind us asked if they could join us through Johnsons Hillock locks, 7 in total. We gratefully accepted his offer and were soon underway, the locks are only a couple of miles away and it wasn't log before we arrived.
There were two boats in the top lock so we went to help them through, and to my amazement one of the boats was Rod Rush, and old rugby friend who we seem to bump into every time we are out on the boat, he was returning to his moorings in Skipton for the winter.

Top of Wigan flight, the lock are just around the corner

We made our way through the locks with ease and were soon on the pound heading for Wigan, The journey was fairly uneventful apart from a few altercations with some fishermen taking part in a match some of them got very upset about a boat passing, some of them shouted that we should be close to the towpath side others wanted us at the opposite side! a few just said to ignore them and stay in the middle, this we did and ignored the shouting. We came to quite a sharp bend and approached on tick over but this particular angler ignored us I had to throw the engine into reverse to avoid hitting his fishing pole so he then started screaming at us for disturbing the fish! (Tosser).
I hope some members of Wigan  Angling Club learn that the canal is not just for them.
We arrived at Wigan early evening just as the lock keeper, Joe, was packing up for the day, we made ourselves known to him and he went through the procedures for the following day.
Thursday 7th September 2107
Wigan Flight - this flight of locks is impressive, dropping the canal some 215 feet into the town.
We waited at the top in the hope that another boat may join us for the descent but we waited in vain and had to set off alone. Joe helped us through the first few having warned us about a bad leak in the 4th lock and that in the 5th lock we would have to leave the boat and rope it through as one of the gates had been damaged previously and there was a danger that they could fail. News had just come in of a disaster at Bank Newton the day before where a boat had got caught in the lock, the picture shows the result, so needless to say we heeded his advice.

Disaster at Bank Newton, thankfully no one was
 hurt and the boat was re floated

We pressed on with Lucia doing all of the 23 locks and arrived down on the Leigh branch 4 hours after starting out. We cruised down to Dover Lock to moor up for the evening. Dover lock is the site of a pair of locks that, due to mining subsidence , are no longer required so they have been converted into a mooring close by the Dover Lock Inn.

Onto Manchester this weekend and up onto the Ashton and Peak Forest Canals.