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| Gardening on our Tuesday night mooring on Priest Holme aqueduct |
Neither of
us like to sleep in a warm bedroom so, when the stove is on, we keep the door
through to the rest of the boat closed during the night. We also like to have air circulating so have
a door open to the cratch. All this
means that on frosty nights we wake up to ice on the inside of the windows like
when we were younger before houses generally had central heating; Monday
morning was one of those mornings. Of
course, this means that Buddy, who sleeps next to the stove, gets an extra cosy
night’s sleep with our door shut.
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| Sun’s up on Monday morning and the frost has gone on our mooring at Skipton junction |
Our first task
on Monday was to walk to the vets and get Buddy checked out following our
recent trip abroad. We also needed to
discuss the options for a no deal Brexit as, if that happens, then he will need
some tests done three months before we leave. We left it that we will pay another visit in
December when we come back up north for a couple of days to see my parents.
The next
big job was to get a few bags of compost and some winter plants as we want to
get the boat pots potted up ready for winter cruising. As we had the car we paid a trip to a garden
centre and then managed to find a spot in the car park next to our mooring to
get the car unloaded.
After
visiting both my parents during the day, the final main task was to leave the
car at their house in Gargrave and walk back to the boat. The sun was still out and, even though there
was a chill wind, it was a pleasant five mile walk along the towpath. We are
now free to cruise without having to worry about the logistics involved in
having a vehicle when you’re a continuous cruiser, such as where to moor that
is handy to leave a car for a few days.
Tuesday
was a cruising day and we set off just after eight. The locks at Gargrave and several other
flights on the Leeds & Liverpool are still subject to water restrictions
and are padlocked from 4.00 pm until 10.00am.
That left us two hours to travel the four miles or so to the bottom lock
at Gargrave. Sounds like loads of time,
but there are five swing bridges to negotiate and we weren’t in a hurry, so we
didn’t arrive until about 10.15.
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| Leaving Skipton under grey skies |
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| Looking back at the junction having just passed restored ‘short boat’, Kennet |
The first
swing bridge is in the town centre and we expected it to be busy with commuters
coming into town. Karen didn’t set the
lights and bring the barriers down until the road was clear. When I went through there were just a couple
of cars waiting but by the time Karen had got the barriers lowered and the
bridge swung back into place she reckoned there were about two dozen cars waiting to come
through. As she remarked, “No one gave
her hassle and they probably all know that it’s a short cut that may end up not
being so”.
The second
swing bridge, by Airedale Park, is always problematic to operate and Karen has
always had to get help on each of the six occasions we have been through. You may ask why I don’t get off and help but
it’s really difficult to moor on the side where the bridge swings – a scourge
of the single-handers.
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| Karen getting help at Gawflat swing bridge |
Even
though it was grey, the rain kept away but I was really feeling the cold. It’ll only take a day or two before I get
used to wearing the right gear for standing still on the back of an open boat
in cold wind and rain. As long as we’re
not bitterly cold we love winter cruising and are really looking forward to the
next few weeks getting down to Aylesbury.
Just
before Niffany swing bridge we passed a hire boat just casting off and, as they
were heading in our direction, we invited them to join us up the locks when we
got there. They were really pleased as
it was their first hire boat holiday and they were feeling very nervous.
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| Niffany swing bridge (a different hire boat on the left rather selfishly moored overnight on the bridge landing) |
Karen had
been walking with Buddy from Skipton but got on at Thorlby swing bridge as she
wanted to get the evening meal set in the slow cooker (pulled pork 😊).
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| Waiting for Karen to get aboard |
She seemed
to disappear for a while and then I realised she had popped into the farm to
buy some eggs. When we were moored at
Thorlby over the summer we always got our eggs from the farm there.
One of the
jobs we had done on the boat whilst we were away on holiday was to get a
bracket mounted on the tiller, so we could fly the Red Ensign.
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| Not tied properly yet, but it proves it works |
We won’t
be flying it over here, but it is a must in France where all boats, inland or
coastal have to fly the flag of their country of origin.
Another
job we had done was to have a plate attached to each of the rear dollies; these
are a pre-requisite for using lines in the generally deeper French locks.
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| Rear dolly extension with a neat hole for fuel tank breather |
We also
had double dollies bolted to the gunwales in the cratch. These are needed for the same reasons but two
are recommended because of the way narrowboats have to be held in gear in the
locks.
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| New front dollies |
They look
like real obstacles but it’s surprising how quickly you get used to avoiding
them
We arrived
at the bottom lock of the Gargrave flight (Holme Bridge lock) at 10.15 with the
hire boat family. A girl that I knew was
waiting at the lock landing and it transpired that she had just got a job with
the hire boat company and helped the hirers up the first couple of locks.
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| Successfully ascended their first lock |
We did the
next two locks together and then left them in the middle of Gargrave as their
central heating wasn’t working properly and an engineer was coming out to fix
it. Karen had asked one of the children if they moaned because it was cold and she told her that they love the outside as they
are scouts and camp in all weathers, but it’s the parents who complain.
We knew
there were no other boats on the way so went up the last three locks on our
own. Karen found what she called, ’blog
material’ at Anchor lock. My sister, who
had been visiting my parents last week, had been for a walk along the cut and
saw rather a lot of water escaping through the lock sides so she and Nigel reported it
to CRT.
The
workmen seemed to be spending their time staring at the ground:
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They had injected
polyfoam into some of the holes during the week and that hadn’t cured it. We had seen that being used successfully on
the Curly Wurlies above Bank Newton in the summer but this was the first time
these guys had used it. You can’t see in
the pictures but mounds were rising on the lock side where the foam was
expanding upwards rather than downwards.
When we
went through they were back to the old fashioned method of pouring in
practically pure cement:
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After the
last lock we reached Priest Holme aqueduct where we planned to moor for the
night. There are a couple of mooring
spots on the offside that always seem to have boats there, so we never managed
to moor there in the summer. We were
lucky today and one of the spots was free. Offside mooring is always good as, generally,
there is no footpath and consequently there are no passers-by.
Karen had put a picture of our mooring up on
Facebook and, David, one of our boater friends immediately recognised it and
said it was one of the best spots on the system.
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| The River Aire from the aqueduct with the sun setting on the distant hills |
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| Not easy to get a picture with the aqueduct in because of the trees |
Wednesday
will see us heading off through the Bank Newton and Barrowford flights of locks
with the beautiful Curly Wurlys between them.
