Slow travel

Lincolnshire- all we knew was Robin Hood cavorted here with Marion in a forest, avoiding the bad sheriff. Our route from Yorkshire followed the Ouse, Aire and Don, before depositing us on the R Trent, to navigate upstream and SW. Some 30 miles south of where we joined the incoming tide, we turned east, following the Fossdyke Navigation some 11 miles to Lincoln. A charming old city, home to Celts, Romans, Normans, and now us for a week. Hopefully we won't be as much trouble as some of them were. The cathedral and castle perch naturally high above the river, mediaeval cobbled lanes wreathing the hill, tumbling down to the Brayford Pool, a large inland harbour. For centuries boats sailed  from here to the Wash and beyond, trade including wool, flax, linen, limestone. Now a fine haven for recreational boaters, swans, canada geese, tourists. The swans and geese take parenting seriously, hissing and menacing any folk straying too closely to their families. Mooring in the Pool we are...

29/5/2019 We marshall at the head of the  Keadby lock that descends to the Trent, some 9 miles upstream from its junction with the Ouse.  The keepers of these tidal locks are invariably characters- Kenny, Mark, Neil are in our contacts' list. At each lock the keeper notes your boat's name, and your destination lock. If you don't make it there, they can raise the alarm. A useful safeguard. If you get into trouble, you can ring the keeper. It is raining as we wait for the incoming tide to reach a height which allows egress from the lock. We wear waterproof pants, coats, and life jackets. The boat's anchor accessible in the bows. Excited, nervous (me), chafing to get on with it. An expected four and a half hours and 30 miles to Torksey, the tidal lock upstream, leading to Lincoln on the Fossdyke Navigation ( our term for a labourer, 'navvy', comes from the men who built the canals or 'navigations'). The boats stacking into the lock. In the lock...

23/5/2019 Yesterday we marshalled with 3 white fibre glass cruisers and another narrowboat in the big lock east of York, which deposits you onto the tidal Ouse, 35 miles from the North Sea. Miss the lock at Selby, 15 miles downstream, next stop ??? Both of us are wearing life jackets. In the lock, all craft rope bow and stern to the vertical rails in the lock walls, holding steady while the lock empties. As the lock gates open,  the cruisers leave first, as being lighter they are generally faster than narrowboats. Initially the rising tide seems OK, the boat making good headway. Then the river narrows, flotsam including 3m by 40cm logs, move upstream towards us, our boat weaving between, mostly. The odd thunk as the hull crunches into a log.  With the narrower river, the effect of the tide intensifies, and we are making very slow headway. This is a much fiercer tide than we've ever experienced. Then the tide turns, and our speed goes from barely walking pace to an unaccust...

22/5/2019 A week in York, moored against the Museum Gardens. |Fine weather, dreaming ancient stones, walking the walls, relatives and friends visiting.  Photo above taken late evening from our kitchen window.  Henrietta, an European eagle owl, with another bird!  My last coffee in York, at our fave little cafe. Kitchen bench with irises.

14/5/2019 We left the Calder at Castleford, it of the roving bridge, where the Aire drops in from Leeds. East on the Aire, a lazy coastal plain river, winding through farmland, past cooling towers, chemical works, oil refineries. Where the Aire makes a final dawdle to the Humber estuary, the short Selby canal branches north, to join the Ouse. This is York's Ouse, not the southern Great and Little Ouses, they of the Cambridge area. At the great tidal lock at Selby, one books a passage to launch out on to a rising tide, and belt NW to the even greater lock at Naburn, about 5 miles downstream from York. From there, only the erratic rise and fall of the river a challenge, as most of the rain that falls on the Yorkshire Dales drains out to the North Sea via the Ouse. We are moored above Naburn overnight, to achieve a filling of the water tank and the draining of the septic tank. The latter is needed every 2 weeks approximately with 2 aboard, and the water tank weekly. These large ...

11/5/2019 Under several Acts of Parliament an individual can gift property - land, art work, archival material- to the National Trust and to other institutions, in lieu of tax, including inheritance tax. As travellers we seek out NT properties, enjoying the exceptional collections, structures, landscapes they provide. Today we visited Nostell Priory, a 15 min bus ride from Wakefield. It came into the hands of the NT in 1954 (?), in lieu of inheritance tax. A dreamy lovely 300 acre environment, 18th C mansion, huge walled garden (with rhubarb). Interesting to visit on the day we hear of Labor's policy of increased taxes on the wealthy- anathema no doubt to the haves whether in the 18th or 21st centuries. A most interesting head gardener, Mark, talked us through the life of rhubarb, how the Priory is part of the forced rhubarb triangle. We concluded with a sampling of rhubarb compotes, from 6 of the 19 varieties grown at Nostell, ranking them for flavour, appeal. An interestin...

11/6/2019 The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield is a gem in a busy, messy town, traffic roaring through across the River Calder and the canal, ignoring the gallery on one side, and a rare bridge chapel on the other (have read that only 4 such remain in the UK). Ms Hepworth told an interviewer that her early travels as a child round west Yorkshire with her shire engineer dad, inspecting the roads and bridges of the county, embedded in her a love of the shapes, forms of the country. Her art, she said, was a response to this experience. George Eliot was similarly inspired by her travels with her father, a land agent or steward, with her insights into language, people and society of her time. It is a fascinating connection between art and literature, across different eras. Another fact new to us, was that Henry Moore grew up a few miles from Wakefield, in Castleford, and was a contemporary of Ms Hepworth. The Gallery contains his work too. An intriguing aspect of the gallery is...

8/5/2019 The Calder and Hebble Navigation (2 rivers which have canal sections, as well as river sections made navigable with weirs and locks) travels roughly west to east, from the old mill town of Sowerby Bridge towards Wakefield. The C and H has two peculiarities. 1. Half its locks are 57'6" long. Santiago is 58'6" long. As the locks are designed for wide beam boats, they are 14' wide. Therefore Santiago can just fit - on the diagonal! This means roping the bow into a corner, keeping the stern very close to the dreaded cill. Not a misspell, the lock equivalent of a window sill. The cill acts to seal the bottom area of the lock's top gate. As water is released to drop the boat down, the propeller can get lodged on the cill. This is one way that boaters have died. Cap'n JJ manages the gentle release of water in these locks, while first mate stands on the stern feeling nervous, sometimes getting wet from waterfalls through leaky gates. Who said boati...

8/5/2019 A day in Halifax, no 'last Tango', although dancing in the square of the mighty Piece Hall wrapped up a day when gormless Oz tourists stumbled into a leg of the Tour de Yorkshire.  We wondered why the train was packed,  on a cold Sunday. More lycra clad lads than we've ever seen, large live in team support vehicles,  street massage of tight calves. We retreated to the Industrial Museum, where the attached photo of our bridge was spotted- equipment to drill all those holes for rivets came from Halifax. A particular exhibit intrigued me - a sock knitting machine.  Beats using 4 needles and bad language. Piece Hall itself is ginormous, where cloth trading (piece worked) occurred weekly. Now a town market place for gin sellers, clothes, icecream, jewellery....

5/5/2019 First thing this morning a line of enthusiastic dog walkers strode past, inspiring us to up and at the day - a 10 min train ride from Sowerby Bridge west to Hebden Bridge. Yesterday we found a snicket (also a ginnel or alley) leading to the pedestrian bridge to the station. Hepden B is a charming thriving place, reminding us of Berry or Leura. An old mill town, the chimneys, mills and warehouses still evident. A resident (and info boards) told us that it was run down, depopulated in the 80s, until 'the flower people' (I quote) moved in, 'you know, the artists, musicians, writers'. Now a thriving economically robust place, unusual among the old mill towns. The cafes, market, antique shops trading well, the latter yielding some goodies - a little piece of uranium glass for JJ, and clip on ear rings for me. In the hills behind HB lies Hardcastle Crags, a National Trust property, beech trees, swathes of bluebells, rhododendrons. Miles...

4I/5/2019 t has taken just 5 days to take our 20 tonne boat up and over the Pennines. A distance of 32 miles, 91 locks. The canal starts in Manchester, 9 locks climbing through and sometimes under the heart of the city. Some of these locks are very challenging, as the city constrains the usual excess flow of water through side washes. Instead overflow is directed by pipe back into the lock approach, the force pushing the boat sideways, in one case into the arched structure above the canal. Reversing the boat and a charge at full throttle was the only solution, a direct contrast to the preferred slow and gentle approach to a lock. Oh well, only some paint and pride were lost. Above these locks we paused to regroup, and the Cap'n to investigate the weed hatch. Out came a whole doona, pictured above. A short time later, a mangled black hoodie. Our fortunes changed. The locks on the Rochdale are all double locks, so we were hoping to find another boat going our way, to...