06-20 Second Verse Same as the First

As Karen will tell you, if possible, I like to take a different road home when we're on trips. On the Canal that's just not possible. So our first destination this morning is...the Bingley Three Rise locks followed by the Bingley Five Rise locks.

As we round the corner to view the locks we see TWO boats (our friends are first in line) waiting to go up and THAT'S not a good thing when the lock can only hold two boats.

So, we indeed DO have to wait about 100 minutes before we get to start up. We try and put a good spin on it by playing lock master. I don't get to do the locks that often so we went up and helped the two boats lock through the three locks.

By the time our turn came to go up another boat had come up and they wanted to go through also. Great, because it is easier with two boats.

Our NEW locking buddies were bringing their boat up from another canal and they were now going to continue remodeling it closer to their home.

With sunshine and 3MPH this never gets tiring.

There are more people around this time when we arrive at the Bingley Five.

Sometimes the lock gates or the paddles don't close all the way and a stream of water will cascade into your bow. If the water enters faster than the scuppers can drain it then you get wet carpet in your living room. NEVER a good thing. The lock master was an expert at knowing his lock and how to open the water gates to keep the boat bows from filling with water.

We locked up without incident and pulled off to the side at the Cafe (beyond the STOP sign) to fill our water tanks up and use the free Wi-Fi to send off some updates from Karen. Our friends from Australia were still at the top waiting for us! After all this time? That's their boat on the left.

The cool thing about two boats going together is you can play hopscotch with the Swing Bridges. One crew opens the swing bridge for both of you. You keep motoring along and by the time you get to the next swing bridge and open it they have caught up with you and THEY sail through. It cuts your swing bridge delays in half.

Karen has opened the bridge and they are moving on to the next one.

After awhile we catch up to the boat that was ahead of us at the Bingley Three and they have a bridge open and BOTH of us sail through. Karen and I decide to visit a city so we leave the two of them to continue on up the canal without us.

Typical scenery along the way. There's a bridge up around the bend.

Just a motorin' along...

At the town of Silsden we walk into town and don't find much to do. We buy some more supplies (food) and then head back to the boat.

We find good fortune in the next few hours of boating in that two more bridges are open for us by other boaters before we stop for the night. It was a great day to be out on the water.

06-19 Eight Locks Over Easy

Last night we tied up close to the famous Bingley Five Rise locks so that we could start the process of going through 5 connected locks early in the morning. Little did we know the pleasant surprise that awaited us.

We were getting ready at our own pace when we heard a knock on the hull. There was a lady asking if we would be going through the Bingley soon. The upshot was that the lockmaster likes to put through two boats at a time for this series of locks. If another boat gets ahead of us we may have to wait an hour to lock through. In a matter of 5 minutes we cast off and headed the 1/4 mile to the locks and found our locking buddies.

The Bingley Five are five locks sharing lock gates. The downstream lock gates of lock #1 is the upstream lock gate of lock #2 and so on down through the 5 locks. This view is from the top. The bottom of each lock is the long black wooden handle which is the downstream lock gate (including the white one that Karen's picture is taken from).

Here is the view from below the locks that is much more beautiful. Each of the white gate-like structures is the bottom of a lock.

So our two boats entered the upper lock and the lockmaster proceeds to do Karen's work! The other boat we are with has 5 people on board and one of the men, Robert, does the work on the other side of the lock. I talk to the other captain and Karen talks to the other non-working ladies on their boat. What a peaceful way to do locks.

Between the Five-Rise and the next set of similar locks called the Bingley Three Rise is a 1/4 mile walk so Karen just walks it while I motor down to it.

Our new friends have done several canal waterways vacations. (Holidays, actually they're British). They are a nice couple from Australia traveling with his sister, her husband and daughter. The threesome is from England, east of London. The Australians have both worked in Australia for ten years for the same company and that earned them 3 months off. They had been in Italy and most of the same places we've been. She teaches school, he is an engineer.

We fly through the last 3 locks with help from another lock master and Robert and we have finished all 8 locks in 70 minutes!

Three locks to get us down to the level of those two boats in the distance that are waiting to go up.

We've all collected our crews and we're off down the canal.

We all decide that our destination today is the town of Saltaire as we lock through another two locks together and finally go our separate ways when we get to town. Locking is hard work for the captains.

The old mill on the left and the new mill on the right as we enter the town of Saltaire.

Karen and I have lunch and then go off to explore. The town's name comes from the founder, Titus Salt, and the river that runs through it, Aire. Mr. Salt and Walt Disney have something in common. They both wanted to create a city where people could work, live, and play.

Salt, however, accomplished his goal by building stone houses for his workers in 1851...

...and a hospital, library, concert hall, schools, and a recreation park.

...and a huge steam-powered textile manufacturing facility.

The reason for all of this? The living conditions for his workers were killing them. Thus, the stone houses he built for them were larger, had running water and proper sanitation areas. Ah, the good life.

His old mill is gradually being turned into a shopping/eating/gallery area for tourists.

Our boat needed to be returned from where we picked it up so this required that we determine how far away we could go and then make it back to Barnoldswick by Saturday morning at 10am. THIS was our turnaround point.

There are designated turnaround spots on the canal. The guide books list them so it isn't a mystery. In some places the canal is only 4 boats wide (about 25') so you can't turn a 60' boat around just anywhere.

We boated out of town another 1/2 mile to one of these spots and without incident we made a wonderful 3 point turn and headed back the way we had come.

As we approached a lock there were two boys playing around. They wanted to help us lock through. They were fun to talk to and they WERE helpful.

Our destination this evening was a Pub. Yep, Karen and Pat going to a Pub. It was recommended by one of the lock masters this morning and we owed it to him to check it out.

A few hours later we tied up the boat and headed up to The Fisherman's Pub (recently redecorated and renamed The Fisherman at Bingley) for food. Out on a limb we each ordered Sausages and Mash (mashed potatoes). We had a nice chat with the waitress who was surprised that we hadn't tasted this English dish and she assured us we would get the best Sausages and Mash that we'd ever eaten tonight. Huh?

We both really enjoyed it but left the vegetables for the compost pile out back.

Today's locking buddies showed up while we were eating and they were going to eat dinner and watch the English soccer team on TV. Despite the chance to engage in the English culture, we passed and headed back to our boat.

06-18 Big Cities on the Canal

One of the biggest cities on the canal is just up ahead. We're all dressed in our short sleeved shirts ready to hit the town.

BUT FIRST...We must navigate a few SWING BRIDGES to get there.



These bridges can be out in the middle of nowhere to allow people to get from one side of the canal to the other or they can be in the cities where you actually stop traffic.

They can be completely manual or completely electric or some combination.

So this manual bridge is locked and it takes a special key (that you can buy anywhere) to unlock it so that you can swing it.





Karen is standing and pushing against the lever arm and swinging the bridge open AND taking a picture. They all are not that easy. Some need more work than others.



Here is the bridge open all the way and I've already moved the boat through.



After I motor on through she will swing it back so that it is usable. Then she will lock it again, walk across the bridge, and climb aboard the boat that I've masterfully landed without deck hand assistance.



In addition to all of the locks that we went through we also went through 48 swing bridges during our week on the boat.

Skipton is the largest town we'll be going through this week. We found someplace to tie-up the boat (which is pretty much ANYWHERE along the canal) and walked about a 1/4 mile to the center of town.



They have a market in the streets about 3 or 4 days out of the week. It's kind of like our street fairs at home but they do it more often. You can see a few of the white tents in the background.



Their other big deal in town is the Skipton Castle which we paid $7 pounds to visit.



This is a greatly preserved castle that, despite having no furniture in it, gave you a great sense for what the living conditions IN a castle were.

There were many school groups with teachers who were giving excellent tour guide information on the castle that we occasionally eavesdropped on. This guy had a sword as a pointer.



The castle courtyard with a tree planted many years ago by the lady of the house.



Rain drain upgrades were one of the "newer" improvements to the castle.



The great banqueting hall.





They had used a kitchen from the 1400's for awhile...



...and then they upgraded to this one with cast iron.



Yep, it's what you think it is. They called it the "long drop" and they usually went directly into the river off the back side of the castle.



We enjoy castle exploring. It makes us appreciate our easy living.

We shopped a little bit in town and Karen found a great deal on a Disney Brave Little Tailor piece.

The "famous" fish and chips in town is Bizzie Lizzies and on our way back to the boat we picked some up and had lunch on the boat on the canal with it. Karen said it was very good because it was cod.



As we continued on through town on the water we came upon the intersection of two canals. The main canal that we are on bends around to the right. The Skipton Spring Canal bends to the left and within a 1/2 mile will be behind the Castle.





My kind of boat!



Along our route today we found a memorial to Polish Airmen in WWII who were in England training and their plane crashed.



Houses and other boats along the canal.





After a long day of "swingin' bridges" Karen gets a break.