Thursday 15/9 Bridge 193 to Skipton

Early morning mist and two of the cheeky cows from yesterday

We had a lazy start to the day, after a lovely nights sleep followed by bacon and eggs for breakfast, cooked to perfection by L. We pulled the pins at 9.15am, heading off for an easy day on the canal.

Quiz question. What type of sheep are these?

Going through Silsden; some garden ornaments to delight the canal traveller. Some are subtle, tucked away

Others, well, what can I say?

There is still lots of colour to be seen in some canal side gardens, oh look what's that I see there.

L had a couple of near encounters with the side of the canal as we played spot the gnome/G.O. We think there might be a secret G.O. breeding program happening in Silsden.

All too soon we were out in the countryside again and an open sb, bliss

The canal was looking lovely today, and yet another sb

An old Liverpool barge, converted into a very nice looking live aboard. Short and wide they were built specifically to work on the Leeds and Liverpool canal.

Is that a hill out there, we can spy through the fog?

Kildwick

Crossing a sb to manually open it

An enticing path through the wood

Looking across the valley

And again a little later

And industrial building in Bradley 

Bradley village store. Bradley seems to have come down in the world since the closure of the mills.

Cows and stone walls

Looking up to the moorland

Old barn in the distance

A part of the original canal wall

Looking back to Snaygill boat yard where we stopped and took on 100lites of diesel and had a pump out ready for Mike and Tims arrival.

And here we are moored up in Skipton 'Gateway to the Dales' a thriving market town, population 14,000. And we are moored bang in the middle of it. 

On the way into Skipton we stopped and did a water fill and Lawrence took the opportunity to shower and wash his hair while we were filling. We then moved onto our present mooring. We set out to do a preliminary explore of the town but didn't get very far from the canal before walking past a pub with shady outdoor seating that was still serving food. So we ended up having a leisurely lunch in the shade, buying another anti vandal key (Lawrence is terrified I'm going to drop it in the canal and I think an extra one will be handy when we get Mike and Tim lock wheeling) and much to L's disgust spending 3 GBP on duck food, which I must say looks suspiciously like decanted dog kibble.

We then took a walk down the canal to see if any mornings were available closer to the train station for Tim and Mike's arrival, purchased an ice cream from an I cream boat and concluded we were in one of the best mooring spots, so here we will stay for the next couple of days as there is lots we want to do in Skipton and surrounds.

7 1/2 miles, 0 locks, 11 sb's, 100lts diesel, 1 Pump out. 4 hours