More boaterly kindness; jigglers

We left the visitor mooring at Castleford this morning in the dry, but not for long. A sudden short shower had me reaching for my coat - and Jan handing me my leather hat. Most of the day was hot and dry; although we had some torrential downpours after we'd tied up in Wakefield.

But that's jumping the gun. As I held the boat at a landing stage while Jan pressed the buttons to operate King's Road Lock I got talking to a boater, Trevor, who moors near the lock. I mentioned that we were on the way to Stanley Ferry to get diesel and that Supreme Marine were charging 95p/l in Castleford and that's why I got only 20 litres. Trevor said that Stanley Ferry Marina would charge about the same and offered to drive me to a nearby garage selling it for 71.9p/l. He also offered the use of as many jerry cans as I needed. It got so that I couldn't refuse his generosity; we filled three of his 20 litre cans as well as my 20 litre can while Jan went across the road to Lidl. Returning to the boat I put my funnel in the filler of the tank - and immediately realised that holding a full and therefore heavy jerry can at the right angle was going to be impossible without spilling diesel everywhere. Trevor said "you need a jiggler" and went back to his boat to get one. This is a length of flexible hose with a brass fitting at one end containing - as far as I could tell - a small glass ball. This acts as a one-way valve such that all you have to do to get the siphon started is jiggle the end of the hose up and down in the jerry can. With each "jiggle" a small amount of diesel is trapped in the "uphill" part of the hose coming out of the jerry can, adding to any diesel that was already there, until eventually it starts flowing downhill drawing more diesel up behind it.

I transferred the contents of all three of Trevor's cans into the tank - and I'm proud to say that not one drop of diesel was spilt into the navigation. That was enough to fill the tank; I put my full can away in the boat. We had invited Trevor and Amanda to join us for coffee, but they had to go and buy a present for a birthday celebration, so they left us to return the cans and the jiggler in their absence.

Well, it seems that all I have to do is say the word "diesel" and boaters go out of their way to be helpful. Thank you Trevor, it was good meeting you and Amanda. I wonder what your boat is called!

It didn't take long to reach Fall Ings Lock in Wakefield - we were back to using a windlass again. This lock, Trevor had warned us, was a bit of a pig when going up as there were no ground paddles. We took it slowly, therefore, but even with both top gate paddles fully raised when the lock was more than half full it took ages to reach a level.

We walked into Wakefield in the heat, risking not taking coats. This plan almost backfired as there were a couple of heavy showers while we were in the city, but we managed to avoid getting soaked by being, conveniently, either in the bank or in Sainsbury's.

The cathedral was closed for repairs and the Hepworth art gallery was closed by the time we realised what the concrete monstrosity we'd walked past earlier was. There was an interesting chapel on Wakefield Bridge, though.

According to the blue plaque the Chantry Chapel is one of only four bridge chapels remaining in England. (I have seen buildings on bridges at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts and St.Ives, Cambs - are these two of the other three?)

The footbridge to the Hepburn gallery crosses Wakefield Wharf on the weir stream of the Calder. An interesting effigy to rival any seen at Charity Dock on the Coventry Canal dangles from a crane.

We ate in the Ruddy Duck opposite our mooring. This is a Marston's "Two for One" chain pub like the one in Braunston (The Boat House, if I remember correctly). They managed to forget about us after we'd ordered our food; they were very apologetic and offered us a free drink or pudding as compensation for our having to wait so long. Oh, and they brought us free garlic bread while we were waiting for our first course.

Tomorrow (Sun) we look forward to Andrew and Bekka joining us for a while.

Water taxis make for tight squeeze in River Lock

Today marked the end of our cruise along the entire length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. What a great journey it has been. The wonders of Liverpool; the hard work of the Wigan Flight; the spectacular scenery of the Pennines; the myriad mills; the suddenness of Skipton; the airiness of Saltaire ... oh! I seem to be getting carried away. Leeds itself was looked forward to as the culmination of the trip, but seemed a bit of an anticlimax. Not the city's fault, I'm sure, more because it was, for us, a stop on our "rush" to get to Marsden for our Standedge booking.

The canal ends at the lock which drops from Granary Wharf onto the River Aire. As we were just about to go into this River Lock we were hailed by the operator of the water taxi service asking if they could share the lock. It's only a standard Leeds and Liverpool lock, i.e. not much more than 14 feet wide; it was a tight fit as two yellow taxis wedged themselves in. They must have been 7'6" wide.

There was no room to spare. Fortunately the lock chamber provided no surprises and we emerged unscathed.

We were now able to put our windlasses away for a while as the next locks were all mechanised. After a couple of self-service ones they had lock keepers to press the buttons from inside their control cubicles so we didn't even have to leave the boat.

As we cruised along Jan suddenly called out, "White heron!"

I took one or two photos - this was the best.

Apparently it's also known as an egret (little or large?)

After getting some of what must be the most expensive diesel on the system at 95p per litre base price at Castleford we tied up on the visitor mooring and explored the town. Apart from the bus station it all looks rather tired. A bit 1980s.

Nice mural near the navigation, though.

Stuck in a lock (with two other boats)

Saturday 16th August 2014: Knottingley to Barnby Dun

This post could equally well have been titled: Another day, another power station. There is still coal mined here!

First, though, the washing machine saga. The green plastic housing contains one of the two motor brushes.

I'd like to unscrew the brush housings in order to free up the brushes - if indeed they are stuck - but I need a box spanner to get at the bolts.

I did manage to poke the carbon with a screwdriver which may have freed the brushes up slightly ...

... as when Jan tried the machine on Sunday it actually spun. This is the first time it has spun for two years! Let's hope it will be all right now.

OK, back to coal. This is Kellingley Colliery from the Aire and Calder, promising "tomorrow's energy standards today".

It's not easy to see in my photo, but there's a huge mound of coal (slack?) just behind the sign.

And this is another power station, presumably fired by the coal from next door.

Do you see the house on a pole on the left? There are quite a few along this stretch of the navigation.

I assume they're for birds of some kind.

Much of this bit of the Aire and Calder looks like this.

Straight, wide and deep, with flat farmland on both sides.

When we turned right onto the New Junction Canal it was more of the same, only with lift and swing bridges. And it was even straighter. Five miles without the slightest hint of a bend until the very end.

But it was along here that we encountered our first problem with the electro-hydraulic locks.

At Sykehouse Lock we entered the empty chamber with two other boats, and then found that the operating panels wouldn't work. The fault condition light was showing, and nothing any of us could do would make it work. Someone eventually managed to get through to CRT and we were promised help "in less than an hour".

A young boy from one of the boats had seemingly been pressing buttons at random, and this appears to have upset the system. The CRT man did arrive in less than an hour and soon had the lock filling. The lock is complicated by the presence of a swing bridge over the chamber. This has interlocks to prevent lock operation if it is closed - I think this had something to do with it. We were held up for more than an hour here in all. As we left the now-working lock I was interested to see that the traffic lights showed both red and green simultaneously.

We eventually got to our planned mooring at Barnby Dun. (Photo taken this afternoon 19th Aug)

The next day was Sunday; we went to the parish church where we were warmly welcomed. After the service David and Penny drove home, dropping me off at Cambridge Station on the way so I could get a train home. I spent that afternoon and the whole of Monday mowing the lawn, trimming a hedge and doing various other essential jobs.

Today (Tuesday 19th) I returned to Jubilee by train, and we have moved to good secure (BW key) moorings in Doncaster.

I must write about the train journey - perhaps tomorrow. Now it's time for bed. I hope the Minster clock doesn't keep me awake. It chimes every quarter.

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.

Water filler coming away from mounting

Thursday 14th August 2014: Cooper Bridge to just past Horbury Bridge

Still a day behind with the write-up, but there seems to be less time when there are visitors on board. The first task of the morning was for David and Penny to take their car to a nearby railway station so that they could retrieve it at the end of their time with us. Mirfield was selected as the most convenient; we arranged to pick them up at Lidl as we cruised past. This we did, but we were delayed half-an-hour by the excitement at Battyeford Flood Lock.

CRT were replacing the flood gates, so we had to wait until they could move their workboat-mounted crane out of the way. We were able to tie up to two other workboats; while we were there another boat came alongside us and one was held up coming the other way. All part of the fun of boating!

After Mirfield, to cut a long story down a bit, we made the very tight turn into the arm leading to Savile Town Wharf in Dewsbury. Half way along this arm is a splendid mural celebrating the opening of the Calder and Hebble navigation in 1770 and some of the cargo it carried. I ought to know what shoddy and mungo are, but I have either forgotten or else I didn't know in the first place. It's a shame the boat depicted is a modern pleasure boat rather than one which might actually have carried cargo.

There is another mural alongside the towpath which is rather more "street".

The text reads "chillin' @ da canal", complete with apostrophe. I wasn't best placed to do it justice with my photo - indeed, I have missed off the right-hand end altogether.

At the end of the arm I was surprised to see a basin full of boats. None of this was here the last time we visited in 2005. Good to see the Leggers Inn still doing good value grub and excellent ales. I sampled a half of Oak Stout which was very tasty. Back at the boat, which we'd put on a visitor mooring (angled short pontoon) it poured with rain. David had gone into the town; he came back fairly wet.

Continuing our journey we eventually moored just beyond Horbury Bridge near a water point. After topping up I was very surprised to find that the boat's water filler had popped out. Help! How did that happen?

The water tank below the well deck has a plastic liner, so none of the crud should be getting in. I'm wondering if the tank has expanded and pushed out the filler. I'm not sure what to do about it - pushing down on the filler it feels spongy in that it wants to come out again. Perhaps that explains the ring of silicone lying loose in that area. Maybe the filler had been fixed in place purely by sealant.

Up-to-date information: we are now (Friday evening) at Knottingley, just past Ferrybridge.

Falling through Fall Ing Lock

Nine week cruise - day 18 - Tuesday 19th July 2005

Horbury Bridge to Leeds


Some of the local plant life

I got up at 0625 and walked to the sanitory station and found the BW key wouldn't fit the lock on the loo door. Oh well. Back to the boat, and away at 0730. Watered up at Broad Cut Low Lock at 0830, and in another two and a half hours passed through Fall Ing Lock, the largest so far.


This waterway is so big it needs traffic lights


In a large lock

Stopped at Stanley Ferry Aqueducts to buy gas and have a look round the boatyard. David bought a handcuff key and I wish I'd done the same. There was one on the boat, but having ones own is very handy. We are now on the Aire and Calder Navigation - wide and deep, with electrically operated locks. We tied up for lunch just above a lock at 1345 (this is where writing up the log nearly three years after the event gets tricky: I've left a space in the original obviously meaning to write in the name of the lock when I had a chance to look it up. Well, that chance has been and gone. I suppose I could try to work it out from timings ... must have been Woodnock Lock, or possibly King's Road Lock.)


I wonder what's down here


Ah. More of the local plant life

Stopped at Castleford Junction to investigate the BW office - free Waterways World magazine - and to buy a BW key each. Approaching Leeds we discovered we didn't have a vital ingredient for the planned spaghetti bolognese, so David swopped a can of tomato soup for a can of tomatoes at a moored narrowboat. Eventually moored up in Leeds Canal Basin at 2115. Didn't quite have the feel of Birmingham's Gas Street Basin which we'd visited three years previously, but I think we were officially now on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, yet another first for us. Ate the spag bol.