I was just thinking we had let enough time elapse when low and behold two men wielding windlasses appeared from below the lock. It was non other than the four blokes who had helped us through the Salterhebble flight. I walked down to the lock to say 'g'day'. A surprising number of Yorkshire folk are under the impression that 'g'day' is the standard Oz greeting. Thanks no doubt to Bazza McKenzie and Paul Hogan and perhaps those disastrous "Where the bloody hell are you" ads put out internationally by Tourism Australia when ScoMo was running the ship, just before he was given the flick.
But I digress, where was I? Oh yes, the blokes on the boat in the lock. I asked the chap who helped us the most at Salterhebble how was it going. "Shh" he said "its day 6 of 7, things are a little tense. It gets like this every year. I don't know how you are going to last 8 weeks without killing each other!". Very possible; Tim and Mike might return in 3 weeks to find two decomposing bodies in the boat! BUT we are going well so far - even though L's clothes have spilled out through Tim and Mike's bedroom and are now creeping into the living room - just like home. His clunky big boots proving a constant trip hazard (even when on his feet) I don't know why, but for some obscure reason he likes to get undressed in living rooms. Weird.
Enough rambling, let's go narrowboating
We eventually got going at 9.45, sailing straight through the open gates into the lock. Lawrence shuffling round the gunnel to pull up the fenders.
The blokes on the boat had warned us of the low pound, and so it was
How green is the grass
Lawrence wielding the C&H (very expensive) spike for the last time.
Here is a close up
At the bottom of Kirklees Bottom lock (Robin Hood Grave is some where in the woods on the left)
we would be joining the River Calder
Most of the overhanging trees and shrubs are thus festooned along the river :(
Train Viaduct
The Calder and Hebble Navigation goes off to the left as we turn into Lock 1 on the Huddersfield Broad Canal
Unfortunately they had closed the bottom gates of the lock they had left, but at least the lock was empty which saved me from raising the paddles. Like the C&H these too are short looks, but now we are climbing and the cill is at the bow and no longer a danger, but it makes initially fitting into the lock a lot harder.
As Lawrence was gliding the bow of the boat quietly into the landing of the next look I got a really good sighting of a crayfish AND a perch. Sadly it wasn't the critically endangered native White Clawed Crayfish that I saw. It was a Signal Crayfish, introduced by the British Gov't in the 70s from North America for export to the Scandinavian market. As so often happens with introduced species (don't we know it), it soon escaped from commercial fisheries and began to out compete the native crayfish for habitat and food and has now decimated the native crayfish populations.
Another doer upper looms over the canal
At lock 5 we narrowly avoided disaster. Remember we are now going uphill and rising in the locks. First I had to open the gate paddles on the bottom gates to drain the lock. Lawrence squeezed A.B. into the lock and with great difficulty I shut the gate. Then it was up to the front of the lock to wind up the first of the ground paddles. This you have to do in stages so the boat won't be banged about in the lock by the water surging in. Crossed the lock to raise the second ground paddle. Re crossed the lock and started raising the gate paddle. I had the paddle 2/3s of the way up when I hear a shout of oh fuck, followed simultaneously by a crunching of wood and the engine revving at max. I dropped the paddle (canalese for lowered it as quickly as possible, with some paddle mechanisms you can literally drop them - in an emergency, but this one was a wind back down) and looked around to find the tiller arm about to punch through the winding platform on one of the rear gates. L hadn't been paying enough attention to the back of the boat and the tiller arm had got jammed under the platform as the boat rose. However as luck would have it, he wasn't the only one that made a mistake. I had forgotten to lower a back gate paddle which meant that about a 1/3 or more of the water that was pouring into the lock was flowing straight out again which meant the water level in the lock was rising a lot slower than normal and allowed L & I time to react. It was a real phew moment. Mind you I'm glad I'm not the next person who'll be stepping onto that particular platform!
We had one more lock 'event'. This was one had a gate paddle leaking so badly water was spurting out and pouring into the bow of the boat. Thankfully L managed to shift the bow from under torrent before we got swamped. As it was we got about 4" of water into the large bow hatch. Another potential disaster avoided. I'll be glad to get off these short broad locks and back onto the long skinny ones I'm more familiar with.
I have just realised that we have been contending with broad locks since Manchester and in that whole time we have only shared one lock. No wonder I seem to be permanently sore all over.
The municipal incinerator welcomes us to Huddersfield!
Nearly there, no more locks, only a lift bridge to contend with.
As we came to the lift bridge we could see a boat moored on the end of the landing. We were pulling in in front when a man jumped out of the boat and yelled at us to stop as we were about to run over a pile of shopping trolleys. He and his wife had got stuck on them the day before and had diligently pulled them all out (4 in total I think he said) only to have some kids chuck them back in during the night.
Anyway I left he and L chatting and went to open the electrically operated lift bridge. Read the instructions. Insert the key, turn clockwise, when light comes on go and shut gates across the road at either end of the bridge. Shut one end, and couldn't get the other gate out of its bracket. Tried a few times, returned to instructions re read and tried again, it wouldn't budge. So I had to leave one gate shut with car traffic starting to accumulate behind it, go back to the boat and ask the shopping trolley man for help. "Thars not my department" he said, "I'll 'ave t'get t'wife". He disappeared into his boat, meanwhile more traffic line at the shut gate is getting longer.
Wifie appears we got back to the bridge and she checks that I've done everything right so far and goes to the recalcitrant gate and opens it - just like that! I apologised profusely for dragging her up there and she said "aah thars a' right lourv, ya jus didden yook it 'ard enoof". Much to her delight I instantly fell in love with the Yorkshire word '"Yook".
But I do find it hard to fathom that after all the winding, heaving, yanking, pushing and pulling I've done in the past three weeks, that I didn't yook it hard enough. :) :)
The moorings were just through the lift bridge and wifie warned us that you couldn't get to the side on what was left of the visitor moorings. L tried, just to make sure, and Wifie was right. So once more we are moored up somewhat awkwardly and illegally on the long term, pay for, moorings and if someone from mooring officialdom appears before we leave tomorrow so be it. We are getting very bolshie in our old age!
Apsley moorings. The chap in the boat in the pic was very friendly and chatty and after me saying what did you say 3 times he slowed his speech right down and said you haven't understood a thing I've said have you. When I confessed that I hadn't, he laughed and blamed it on his broad Yorkshire accent. Lawrence came out then with a cup of tea and the three of us had a happy chat until he, a guitar player by profession, had to leave to go to Spain for a week where he had 3 gigs.
When then spent the next 1/2hour bailing and mopping out the bow hatch.
Looking back to the lift bridge. Don't know how well you will be able to see the old wind mechanism, but Lawrence was really taken with it.
On our way to the Apsley Pub for dinner
5 miles, 11 locks, 1 lift bridge, 5 1/4 hours
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