Rejoining the river after leaving the flood lock
We were aiming for Leeds today; along the way we passed huge mounds of what look like coal at disused power stations and hilly remains of defunct coal mines, most of which are being transformed by planting into forested parks, a heap of rundown industrial areas
Followed by long stretches like this
And this
And here, mine refuse slowly being transformed
A lovely old barge
In front of the barge you can see the nose of a Narrowboat which is about the same size as Aqua Life. I'm very happy there is no commercial traffic on the Aire and Calder Navigations anymore.
An old coal or gravel loading chute, looking rather forlorn.
Looking back to Lemonroyd Lock where we stopped for water, at, miracle of miracles, a non leaking, squirting, spraying tap,,which made Lawrence a happy man.
Our first sign of Autumn. Of course the tree could be carking it, and what I thought might be the start of the Pennines in the far distance turned out to be another hill of coal mine refuse.
A converted sailing barge (Ray might know what they are called). It would have once had masts. The wing shaped thing on the side is a keel, there is also one on the other side and they can be lowered in deeper waters.
Thwaites Mill. There has been a mill on this site since the 17thC. It closed in 1976 after a devastating flood, having being operated by the Horn family for over 100 years.
Coming into Leeds, the old still awaiting regeneration
And on the other side of the river, the new
And then there was a mixture of old and new
Plants colonising the river walls
Soon after was the last lock of the day which is also the last lock on the Aire and Calder Navigation. Above the lock is the start of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. For this lock I had to get out the windless, the CRT Key AND the anti vandal key and even with all that hardware I could only get one ground paddle and one gate paddle to work, so it was a slow fill in front of a gazillion gongoozelers in the centre of Leeds. Just above the lock we spotted an empty mooring and Lawrence had to execute a very tricky reverse in front of all the onlookers - another 10/10 and a lot disappointed gongoozelers. We finished mooring up at 4.30pm
Not long after we moored up there was a knock on the roof. An elderly gent introduced himself as Chas, a fellow boater. He had come to tell us that the little basin we had moored in was stepped under the water and if enough boats went through the lock the water level would drop and Aqua Life would be left teetering.
Very nice of him, so we untied, executed another extremely tricky turn out of the basin, still with mostly the same audience. We motored less than 100 metres, to the other side of the Doubletree Hilton Hotel where we are moored up on a pontoon and along with the other narrowboats moored here will add to the picturesque view for the guests of the Hilton when they have dinner or breaky.
We had a much slower than anticipated trip today. All the locks were against us and took an age to empty and fill. And at Fish Pond Lock a single hander was coming down, and being a typical male hadn't waited for the water level to drop completely before closing the sluices so the gates wouldn't open and he couldn't get his key out of the control panel. He then proceeded to push buttons at random and everything stopped working. After about 20 minutes of this he finally walked off in a huff and I had a go. I started the button pushing process at step one an worked my way down the list, crossed my fingers and the gates opened. But before we could get his key out we had to close the gates and sluices. Then I inserted my key and opened the gates to let him out and L. and Aqua Life in.
So we ended up getting to Leeds much later than we thought.
Chas, a single hander, in his 80's, he tells me, somewhat tooth dreprived, whose boats is in much better condition him , is chuffed that he has found us and will come with us when we leave on Monday to get him and his boat 'Graystoo' through the locks (12 locks & 2 sb's to be exact) to Rodley - the first safe mooring after Leeds.
16 miles, 6 locks, 3 flood locks, 7 hours
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