Narrow Boats SICKLE and FLAMINGO: A considerably easier day, despite now travelling alone.

Wednesday 22 May 2019

A considerably easier day, despite now travelling alone.

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan/Cath)

David shuttling up and down the summit -
part of the "dog without owner" episode.

A fairly leisurely breakfast. We vaguely expected that Tasmania would have gone off early, as she had started so early the previous day, but when she hadn't gone when we had finished eating we set off ourselves.

The summit is stunning, but remarkably short.

Passing from Lancashire into Yorkshire

We got delayed somewhat by some local cyclists who were worried about a dog that was on the tow-path that they didn't recognise. We ended up with a comedy of errors where the dog ended up at the wrong end of the summit with its owner at the other end, so we were delayed in actually getting started with going down from the summit.

Typical lock and scenery for earlier part of the descent.

What David managed to do to a steel windlass on some of the worst paddle gear.

This part of Yorkshire is stunningly beautiful. There was mostly enough water, although there were still some shallow places. Also some of the locks, particularly the paddle gear were very under-maintained. David is a lot stronger than his parents, but he was struggling to operate the worst of it.

I and the dogs have walked much of the way from Manchester

Lock 30 - where we met friends Richard and Katie for the first time in 2014

Using a "Spanish Windlass" to drag us off
somewhere where other methods had failed.

I walked the whole way to Todmorden, as the locks aren't far apart and the dogs like to be out in the fresh air, rather than stuck inside the boat. I've walked most of the way from Manchester.

Impressive railway viaduct crossing locks at Gauxholme.

Intended to limit paddle opening, but someone has disabled it.

The "Great Wall of Todmorden" allegedly has more than 4 million bricks.

Watching length anxiously -
Todmorden guillotine lock is particularly short.

We arrived at about 2:30 and tied up at the visitor's moorings. There is a Morrisons nearby so Alan and I went to get some shopping. Tasmania arrived at about 4 pm, but moored a lock or so further down. Then, later on, all of the other historic boats turned up, including Saltaire. Lynette and Sue, her crew, had shifted more than a ton of ballast off the boat on Monday evening, to make the boat a bit less deep in the water, and had worked long hours to catch up the other boats. We agreed to work together again the next day.