On to Knottingley

Friday 15th August 2014: just past Horbury Bridge to Knottingley

I'm trying to catch up here, but sometimes I've been too tired in the evenings to spend an hour and more composing a blog post. Now I have a chance to put things right, as I've come home for a couple of days to mow the lawn and collect the post. Back to Jubilee tomorrow.

So ... last Friday. We soon got to Wakefield, where Nicholson said there was an elsan point. Well, we couldn't see it. Was it among these warehouses at the basin? The sign (on the extreme right of the photo) indicated that we had to turn right, but I think I should have explored the basin.

Just round the corner is Fall Ing Lock, with a sunk burnt-out boat providing a resting place for a family of swans. Having descended the lock we were now on the Aire and Calder Navigation, which takes rather longer boats than the Calder and Hebble.

At Stanley Ferry we stopped to explore the aqueducts. Upstream of them is this "trash screen", presumably put there to catch branches etc. in times of flood, before they block the narrow gap under the concrete aqueduct.

Confusingly, I've come round to the other side to take this picture.

The prettier aqueduct is the iron one.

At Ferrybridge we came to the coal-fired power stations, only one of which (I think) is still in use. The cooling towers make a dramatic backdrop to the lock, which David is operating.

We tied up on the offside moorings by the Steam Packet pub. That's us on the right nearest the camera.

We walked past several fairly grotty-looking takeaways before passing one of the factories making fancy glass bottles. We treated ourselves to an Indian meal at Ruchee. It was pretty good, and we could take our own booze. Excellent. I returned to the nearby Morrison's for wine and some bottles of Ward's ale at only £1 each. That's the ale, not the wine.