Hapton (goodbye Yorkshire, hello Lancashire)

Wednesday morning at Priest Holme aqueduct – no frost overnight

On Tuesday night we were moored at Priest Holme aqueduct which is a few hundred yards before the Bank Newton locks.  This flight of locks is padlocked overnight because of the water restrictions and doesn’t get unlocked until 10.00am.  This meant we didn’t have to start too early on Wednesday 😉   

We left soon after nine as we wanted to take on water before going up the locks.  Nigel, one of the lockkeepers, knew we were heading up and had the bottom lock ready by about 9.30.  We still stopped for water and had a cuppa with Nigel while we waited for the tank to fill.

Nigel kindly helped us up the first four locks, so we all had a good natter for nearly an hour.  He was really helpful as he knows all the nuances of the locks which made the ascent even easier.

Nigel at the bottom lock

It was good to be locking again even though we prefer single width, narrow locks

Most of the locks on the flight have unusual ground paddles in that they are lifted by hand.  They are not easy to get to grips with and have to be lifted in one fluid motion.  Over the summer Karen never managed to lift one (which is quite the norm for the majority of people) but she persisted today and finally lifted two 😊

One of the wooden ground paddles peculiar to this section of canal

After the Bank Newton flight, we had a nice five-mile cruise around the Curly Wurlys through East and West Marton and then stopped for lunch at the bottom of the Greenberfield flight of three locks.

The stretch between Bank Newton and East Marton is called the Curly Wurlys by the locals as the canal goes through many twists and turns as it follows the contour.

The Curly Wurlys

We moored at the Curly Wurlys for several weeks over the summer and absolutely loved it.  As David said on one of Karen’s posts that Priest Holme aqueduct is one of his favourite mooring spots on the system, then the Curly Wurlys are one of our favourites.

Heading to where we moored over the summer (and pumpkin)

What was our summer mooring and view

Pumpkins always remind me of our boat friends Mike & Lesley.  Although I knew Lesley from many years ago, we didn’t meet them both until just over four years ago when they came to visit us on our old boat and gave us a pumpkin as a welcome gift 😊

Artistic farmer?

Moored for lunch on Wednesday at the bottom of Greenberfield

We had a delicious pumpkin soup that Karen had made before we left in the morning.  Every year Karen says she won’t carve a pumpkin at the end of October, but she still does 😊 Not only do we get plenty of pumpkin soup we get roasted pumpkin seeds too.

This was only our fourth time through the Greenberfield locks this year and, on the previous three occasions each lock had been troublesome in one way or another.  The problems were things like broken paddles, heavy gates, silted up chambers etc., all of which made the passage slower. Today the mechanisms were better; however, the wind had got up and made it difficult to get the boat away from the exposed lock landings.  We were mooring at the landings so that we could both operate the locks expecting them to be difficult.

One of the leaky locks at Greenberfield

Greenberfield top lock

Whilst we were coming up the top lock a cow came into the water for a drink and had a bit of a stare off with Buddy:

Getting closer and both showing each other a lot of wary interest

We went through the top lock just as it was being padlocked up at 3.30pm.  Judith rang to say that our Mum had had a fall in her care home, which was only a mile or so away from the canal, so we moored up at the service point and walked to Thornton in Craven to see how she was.  She was shaken but fine, fortunately, but pleased to have visitors.

When we got back we decided to stay on the service mooring overnight even though it had a one-hour limit.  No-one would be coming up or down the locks overnight and we would be long gone by the time they were opened at 10.00am on Thursday.

Our overnight mooring on Wednesday

It was due to rain until mid-morning on Thursday, but I resolved to leave at eight anyway.  As it was several miles until the first locks it meant I would cruise while Karen got on with stuff she wanted to do indoors.  As it happened, by the time I had taken Buddy for his first walk and got rid of our rubbish and recycling at the Greenberfield services, it wasn’t raining, so it was dry when I set off at 8.15am.

A hire boat had moored a couple of boat lengths in front of us the previous evening (in above pic) but heading in the opposite direction, i.e. down the locks.  The two boat lengths between us were for the water point and services.  I noticed they were casting off which was strange as the locks wouldn’t open for them for another couple of hours.  I walked up to tell them (they hadn’t been informed by their hire company ☹) so he said they would fill up with water and then wait.

I heard him saying to her (she was on the tiller), ‘Bring it forward’.  She started driving and was going past us, and heading for the lock landing behind us.  He wasn’t happy and started shouting that she had missed the water point and would have to reverse back.  She was clearly livid and told him that he said drive it forwards. This was all going on with me in the middle as if I wasn’t there.  He then told her that forwards meant to move the boat a little way forwards and not out into the canal.  I tended to agree with her view and she shouted, ‘You can fucking come here now and do it on your own!’.  As I was between them I turned to him with a pleasant smile and said, ‘Enjoy the rest of your holiday’.  I don’t think I’ve seen anyone looking so sheepish 😉

I thought it best that I just cast off and leave them to it so headed out through Barnoldswick.  Barnoldswick used to be pronounced Barlick by the locals but apparently the younger generation are reverting back to calling it Barnoldswick.  Barnoldswick has three big employers, Silentnight, Rolls Royce Aerospace and Esse Stoves so has a lot of modern housing estates built around the village centre which, of course, is not large enough to accommodate the expanded population.

Passing Esse Stoves I noticed their slogan, ‘Master stove maker since 1845’.  The firm was established in 1845, so I think it’s a bit presumptuous to say they were master stove makers from the outset. 

When Karen finished what she was doing inside, she came out and walked with Buddy and it wasn’t long before we were passing the county boundary:

By bye Yorkshire

Next stop was Foulridge (pronounced Foolridge) where you have to moor up and wait to pass through the mile-long tunnel.  Boats heading west (like us) go through on the hour with a window of ten minutes.  Boats heading east also have a ten minute window to enter but on the half hour.  Entry is controlled by automatic traffic lights and we had about 20 minutes to wait for the 10 o’clock slot.

Waiting for the green lights to come on

The picture shows one red light but to the naked eye there are two constant red lights.  The right hand one seems to be oscillating too quickly for the eye to see and my picture was taken when it was off.   

Taken at the right time

It’s only a mile long so takes 15 minutes to get through and soon afterwards we were at the top of the seven Barrowford locks.  This would mean we would be leaving the summit and heading downhill all the way to Wigan.

The grey clouds had gone and it was lovely and sunny just like when we came up the flight with Clive & Jenny in the summer, but nearly 20 degrees cooler 😉  We have many happy memories of cruising (and drinking 😉) with Clive & Jenny, and their friends John & Jayne who live in Foulridge, several times over the summer.

The top of the Barrowford flight

We remembered to keep Buddy on his lead on the back of the boat as the locks were next to sheep fields that weren’t fenced off.  Although it’s nice to see sheep grazing up to the lock edge it means that dog owners have to be aware to prevent a catastrophe.

Barrowford reservoir, still looking rather depleted of water but then it often does at the end of summer

Karen bringing the boat down the flight

A boat was moored at the bottom lock landing waiting for us to come out.  As I drew in alongside them to pick up Karen and Buddy, the guy was casting off; he slipped as he got on his boat and fell into the water.  Luckily, he grabbed his tiller as he fell so only got wet up to his thighs.  We offered help but, probably through embarrassment, he declined, pulled himself up and drove off towards the open lock.

Our original plan was to moor up after going down the flight, but the weather was so nice we decided to cruise to Burnley and moor on the Burnley Mile overnight.  The Burnley Mile is a dead straight embankment (less than a mile long) that takes the canal through the town. 

Pendle hill – dominates Burnley

In the end we decided to carry on and get ahead of ourselves, so we had spare time up our sleeves for a rest day or an atrocious weather day (the amount of dog shit around the mooring rings on the embankment didn’t help).

Heading into Gannow tunnel, outside Burnley, with the sun in my eyes

We were thinking it was about time we should moor up for the day when the engine started faltering and we clearly had something almost immovable around the prop.  We’d been lucky and got all the way through Burnley without a visit to the weed hatch.  Luckily, we were on a straight stretch and the boat had stalled in the middle of the channel.  By the time I had removed the remains of heavy-duty builders’ sacks and assorted domestic plastic bags the boat had skewed across the cut blocking any passage.  Having only seen two boats on the move all day we didn’t expect a boat to come along but sod’s law it did, but they soon understood what was happening and politely hung back.

Once the prop was clear we pulled into the side and moored up for the night.  We were in a place called Hapton about three miles to the west of Burnley so had cruised about eight miles further than we had originally planned.  On Wednesday we cruised six miles through nine locks and on Thursday 17 miles through seven locks and two tunnels.

Rather foolishly Chris Hutchins had asked Karen for our plan for getting to Aylesbury, so here goes – switch off now if you haven’t already done so 😉 

We started with a rough plan of travelling four hours a day and therefore which canal we will be on on each of those days.  Four hours was chosen as that is a realistic average daily cruise in the winter and (fortunately) also the average we need to do to get to Aylesbury by 2^nd December before maintenance closures on the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union.

We then plan in more detail each day on a rolling week basis and put in the expected overnight moorings.  The more detailed planning has to take into account things like needing to be near a station on a certain day to get to an appointment or days when we need to be near a supermarket for food shopping.

On top of that we try and make up time so that we can get free days or if the weather is just too bad for cruising.  So today we are just an hour (three miles) short of making up a day this week already.

DAY	DATE	CANAL	MOORING / HAPPENINGS
Tue	30-Oct	Leeds & Liverpool	Priest Holme aqueduct
Wed	31-Oct	Leeds & Liverpool	Bridge 154 - Barnoldswick
Thu	01-Nov	Leeds & Liverpool	Lob Lane bridge 137
Fri	02-Nov	Leeds & Liverpool	Whalley Road bridge 114B
Sat	03-Nov	Leeds & Liverpool	Blackburn bottom lock
Sun	04-Nov	Leeds & Liverpool	Johnsons Hillock top lock
Mon	05-Nov	Leeds & Liverpool	Wigan top lock
Tue	06-Nov	Leigh Branch	Wigan flight
Wed	07-Nov	Bridgewater
Thu	08-Nov	Bridgewater
Fri	09-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Sat	10-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Sun	11-Nov	Trent & Mersey	Wigan flight and Leigh branch close
Mon	12-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Tue	13-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Wed	14-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Thu	15-Nov	Trent & Mersey	K Edinburgh from Stoke
Fri	16-Nov	Trent & Mersey	K Edinburgh from Stoke
Sat	17-Nov	Trent & Mersey	K Edinburgh from Stoke
Sun	18-Nov	Trent & Mersey
Mon	19-Nov	Birmingham & Fazeley
Tue	20-Nov	Coventry
Wed	21-Nov	Coventry	CRT boating buddy day
Thu	22-Nov	Oxford
Fri	23-Nov	Oxford
Sat	24-Nov	Oxford
Sun	25-Nov	Grand Union
Mon	26-Nov	Grand Union
Tue	27-Nov	Grand Union
Wed	28-Nov	Grand Union
Thu	29-Nov	Grand Union
Fri	30-Nov	Grand Union
Sat	01-Dec	Aylesbury Arm	Locks 12-13 closed 19th - 30th November
Sun	02-Dec	Aylesbury Arm
Mon	03-Dec	Aylesbury Arm	Bottom lock closes 3rd - 14th December