Wednesday 10 August 2016

Apparently it is August – today was the second day that I put the heating on when I got up!!  We even put it on again when we stopped today, although we did have a bit of sunshine this morning.

As we moored at the top of the Bingley Five Rise last night we saw a couple, Sarah and Riggs on Chardonnay, so agreed to travel to Rodley with them making locking and bridging easier – glad we did as there were 17 locks and 11 swing bridges.

Chardonnay is 60 foot long so fits into the locks, just, but it meant that we had to exit the lock first then Riggs had to get the back of the boat into the middle of the lock and Steve would pull the front of the boat over with the boathook then we could open the other lockgate!

There were lock keepers at the Bingley High Rise and the Bingley Three Rise not far down the canal but then Sarah and I were on our own but it was made much easier having two of us doing the locks.

We chugged through Shipley, Baildon, Windhill and Idle.  We moored in a place called Rodley which is known as a safe place to moor before we hit the outskirts of Leeds.

We had a well deserved pint in the pub with Sarah and Riggs and agreed that we would travel into Leeds together so have made a plan to set off at 8.30am tomorrow.

Looks like we stopped just in time – it poured with rain and was very windy all night!

Leaving our mooring and the sun is shining!

In the top lock with our trustee lock keepers telling us what to do and doing most of the hard work!

You an see that Chardonnay is just a bit too long for the gate to be opened - look how deep these locks are too.

 

Steve's got some male company - and they say women talk a lot!

Get the shower gel - they have to go back to enable us to open the gates!

Interesting!

Exiting field locks.

Through Saltaire in Shipley - nice to see they are redeveloping all the old mills.

All the locks on this stretch, except one, are flights of two or three locks.

Go on Sarah get that swing bridge open!

The CRT decided to open this road bridge for us.  When we arrived at the locks they said that the road bridge was having problems closing and wanted us to stop there but said we could try it.  We decided to carry on thinking, if the bridge doesn't close we call the CRT and the can come and fix it! 

Looks like they have outgrown their little house!

I'm on bridge duty, one more and we will be in Rodley.