The June Rose: Monday 8 August 2016

We moved off our mooring to the water point which was only 500 metres up the canal, no sooner had we started to top up the tank than suddenly there were six boats behind us waiting for the tap – sometimes in life you just time things right!

Today we are only going a short distance to Skipton – three locks, four swing bridges and five miles. Back in beautiful countryside and suddenly there are lots of hireboats around – I can’t blame them – who would want to chug through Blackburn and Burnley when just up the canal is this.

Very windy today and we have been warned that if the wind is blowing through the valley the swing bridges can be difficult as the boat gets blown across the canal. Luckily there were quite a few boats about – we did the first two locks with the guys that were having training yesterday then we caught up with another boat so we let them go ahead and by the time we had let them out the other side another boat had caught us up so we did the lock with them and agreed to leapfrog the swing bridges – they opened the first and we went through to open up the second. Wow that was hard work I didn’t think I was going to be able to open it but I just managed to before Steve was almost blown into the reed bed. Once through the other side he had to moor to wait for me and as he jumped off the boat the wind took it – he just managed to get the rope around a bollard but it took all his strength to pull the boat in, meanwhile I was struggling to close the bridge!

When we arrived at the next bridge the guys that were in front of us were moored up with it open so they waved us through – he said that three boats had all been blown across the canal at the last bridge hence the reason we were able to catch up with them!

The other couple we were travelling with stopped just before the fourth bridge and we carried on a bit further into town – thankfully a boat coming the other way had already dropped off a member of crew to open the bridge so we cheekily got through that one too – we only actually did one bridge and that was hard enough – when we leave here tomorrow we have 22 swing bridges followed by the Bingley Five Rise Staircase locks! I had better have a good breakfast!

Skipton – another attractive market town. Lots of Georgian buildings in a wide high street – it was bustling with people today as it was market day. An elderly couple stopped on the towpath to tell us that Skipton was awarded Best High Street in the Country – the northerners are very proud of their towns and villages. Apparently Skipton is Saxon “Skip-tun” means sheep town.