Friday, 9th, Saturday 10th March
We filled up with water and dumped the rubbish (in the skip, of course) at Grindley Brook, and then set off through the locks. The first three locks are a staircase, and then there are three separate ones. We met a boat at the bottom, waiting to come up. It was very windy at the top of the flight, but much calmer below, as we were not so exposed. We went on through Povey's Lock and Willeymoor, the lock which had been closed for maintenance. Here we discovered that in fact the lock had reopened a week early, but it didn't really matter, we wouldn't have changed our plans. We had a mooring at Llangollen until February 28th. We went on through Quoisey Lock, and Marbury Lock, and eventually arrived at Wrenbury.

This is where I have my moment of power and annoy all the motorists! There is an electrically operated lift bridge here, and the traffic has to wait whilst the bridge is lifted and and the boat goes through. The lift is slow, and there's nothing that one can do about it. I always wave and thank everyone for their patience, but it's a waste of time, they're not patient and are usually quite cross! We moored up just round the corner from the lift bridge. Beryl and Trevor arrived about an hour later, and moored up in front. In the evening we all went to the Cotton Arms for a meal. Prices were very reasonable and the food was good.

Click here to find out more about the Cotton Arms

We stayed at Wrenbury for two nights, as we're not in a hurry. We're aiming to be at Swanley Bridge Marina on Sunday, 11th. Trevor and Beryl are putting their boat in there on brokerage, as they're moving on to dry land, and we're leaving our boat there for four nights whilst we set off on an adventure! As it happened, Saturday was a good day to stay put, it was cold, wet and windy.

Sunday, 11th, March
Today we moved on down to Swanley Bridge Marina. The weather was better and I steered whilst Trev did the locks. The towpath along here is atrocious, one almost disappears, well not really, but it is so deep the mud comes over the tops of trainers. It was a nostalgic trip for Beryl in particular, as she's sad to be giving up boating. Trevor (Beryls' Trevor) is keener to leave, as he isn't well at the moment and is waiting for a triple bypass op. We moored up in the marina next to each other. It's a new marina and the people are most helpful.

Click here to read about Swanley Bridge Marina

Monday, 12th March
Today we set off on an adventure! Friends Sheridan and Ron have had a Dutch barge built at Brighouse by Sagar Marine:

Click here to read about Sagar Marine
(When you get to the website, click on mini-luxe Dutch Barge Photos, then on Merlot, and you will see the boat.)

It's been fourteen months in the making, and tomorrow we're taking it out of the yard and off on its maiden voyage. The ultimate destination is the Thames, where they will moor it and cruise. But the first problem was getting it there. There were two choices: having it craned out of the yard at Brighouse and on to a low loader and taking it down south by road. The cost just for the craning was £3,000---just for the crane before they started on the transport! Or crusing down to Newark on the Trent where it could be craned out for £300, and then transported to the Thames. So they asked their friends--i.e. Trev and me--to come and crew on the journey to Newark-on-Trent.

We went by train to Huddersfield where we all met up and got a taxi to the boat yard. We stayed on the boat in the yard for the first night.

Tuesday, 13th March
Today, we set off on the great adventure. Stephen Sagar, the boat builder, came with us too. There was an element of doubt about whether we would get through some of the locks! The boat measures 12'6" by 60' and the locks are supposed to be 60'. But Stephen was confident that we would make it!

Ron got behind the wheel and we were off. We had a right hand bend and two locks to negotiate straight away, and he made an excellent job of it. Then it was off down the Calder and Hebble Navigation. It was quite narrow, but fortunately there was no traffic about and we made good progress. We came to the junction with the Huddersfield Canal, but stayed on the Calder and Hebble, always going east. Quite a few of the locks are flood locks, only closed in case of exceptionally high water. So they were open and we sailed straight through them.

Some of the locks required an unusual device to open the paddles--a Hebble spike. This is a piece of 2"x4" wood, about the length of a baseball bat and tapered at one end. One fixes the narrow end in to a hole on a ratchet and levers the paddle open. it's an ungainly and awkward piece of equipment, but another fascinating aspect of the northern canals, which are so different to the soft south!

Some of the locks were indeed very tight. There was one where it took about half an hour of heaving and pushing and shoving and reversing and bowthrusting to get through. I quite thought it had defeated us, and I was sure I was about to get a hernia or a heart attack with trying to get the gate open! But Stephen was determined we would get through; he has a 59' boat in the workshop at the moment and he has promised its owners it will go through these locks, so we were the guinea pigs! All of the shortest of the locks we would encounter on this journey we met today, and we got through them.

One exciting moment was when we couldn't open the gate at Greenwood Lock. We tried all sorts of things, but it was well and truly jammed by something underneath the lock gate. Our barge pole would only just touch the bottom of the lock, it was so deep. So in the end, we had to 'phone for BW to come out. At length a man came out with a long handled rake, but it was no longer than our barge pole, so he had to phone for reinforcements, and another man came out with a really long keb--which looks like a rake, except that the prongs bend at right angles to pull out debris. He had lots of rods to screw on to it, rather like a chimney sweep's brush, and eventually he removed a scaffolding pole! It took two hours to free us and, with many cheers and thanks, we continued on our way and eventually moored up out in the countryside near Dewsbury. Actually I use the word countryside loosely. There was very little countryside anywhere. It was mostly derelict factories and urban decade, a vast swathe of it, all the way. It really is a different world. Stephen left us and we were on our own now!

Tuesday, 13th March
We set off in the morning and actually saw some fields and greenery, but this soon gave way to Wakefield. Here we nearly missed the turn right on to the canal and the locks, it was well disguised. All the way along we have been alternating between canal and river, the river being the Calder. At Wakefield the navigation changed name to the Aire and Calder. We went through a really long lock, Fall Ing, and on to the Aire and Calder Navigation. The river began to widen here, and there were bigger boats about.

We went along a very straight stretch of a couple of miles passing through a place called Stanley Ferry, over an aqueduct and in to Birkwood Lock--where we wondered what the traffic lights were for on the canal. There were no signs to tell us what we should do, so we proceeded with caution.

We passed the Lafarge sand and gravel wharf at Whitwood and eventually we arrived at Castleford, where there was a junction, left to the Aire and Calder and then Leeds and Liverpool, straight ahead also on the Aire and Calder, which was the way we were going. On no account should one turn right--that way spells disaster! Over the weir...

There were traffic lights here again, and this time they were on amber so we went through slowly and moored up for the night on some BW moorings.

Thursday, 15th March

We slept well, but Trev and Sheridan were woken at about half past six by a considerable rocking of the boat. Scrambling out on deck, they discovered it was an enormous gravel barge going by, at least one hundred feet long. This was why there were traffic lights at the locks, to warn that these huge barges were on their way, and they give way to nothing!

We set off and soon met quite a few more of these barges, one on a bend under a bridge, but Ron handled the situation well. We went through Bulholme Lock, which was manned and this is where we got the bad news. The lock keeper told us there was a major breach at Pollington and the canal would be closed for a week. Aaaaaaaah! What should we do? Well one thing was sure, we certainly couldn't go back. So we carried on in to Castleford and moored up for the night to reconsider. The options were: to wait a week until the breach was repaired or try a different route. From the maps it seemed that we could turn on to the Selby Canal, up to Selby and then right on to the Ouse and down to Goole, from where we could turn right back on to the Aire and Calder Navigation and link back up with our planned route, but on the other side of the breach.

Ron and Sheridan decided to take the Selby route, and so, when we got to Knottingley, we turned left, through a big lock called Bank Dole Lock, on to the Selby Canal, and moored up right out in the sticks at a place called Beal. Ron made some 'phone calls to try to get some accurate information about the situation. One thing he did learn was that our boat was too high to go under some of the bridges on the Selby Canal, and also going down the Ouse to Goole was not as easy as it had been painted. We stayed overnight at Selby and ate at the pub.

Friday, 16th March
Ron and Sheridan decided to turn round, go back to Castleford and wait for the breach to be repaired. It seemed the safest thing to do. We were due to leave today, and so after breakfast we turned the boat round and set off back for Knottingley, where there was a station for Trev and me to get home. We had helped our friends as much as we could, we felt we had done the most difficult parts for them. Certainly Sheridan couldn't have done the locks on her own, and hopefully now they will be able to manage by themsleves.

We'd had a great experience. We'd taken a £250,000 boat out on its maiden voyage, travelled waterways we'd never been on, and will certainly never do again--our boat is too long for them. We'd enjoyed cruising on a wide beam boat, and relished the pleasure of travelling in a wheelhouse, sheltered from the elements. Now it was back home to what we were used to, the narrow canals, a narrow beam boat and cruising in the fresh air--whatever the weather!

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