Thursday 14th April
Today we have come further than we intended. We have travelled about 6.5 miles, 8 locks (the Bingley 3 and 5 rises) and 11 swing bridges and are moored up about a mile outside Silsden. We were going to moor up just outside Stockbridge but there were few metal pilings and where there were metal pilings the canal was so shallow we couldn’t get anywhere near the bank. So we ended up having to travel another couple of miles before we could find somewhere suitable.
It is a lovely spot here though on the outskirts of the town with beautiful views over the hills and sheep fields (lambs aahh) on both sides. We need coal, being near to having to chop up the furniture to keep the fire going and there is a coal merchants in the town, so we decided to walk in and investigate. Thinking it wasn’t very far to the town we took George with us and he did very well to get there without too much hassle because it was further than we thought. There was a steep set of steps up from the canal for him to negotiate as well, bless.
When we got in the high street I found a bench and George, who was a bit tired by this time and I sat down and waited for Ken to find the coal merchants. He found the road it was in but as it was right at the other end of this road he came back. By this time B and B had arrived so we went to the pub, as you do. George was pleased with this plan, not only because he could have a rest before the journey home but more especially because there was free pizza on the bar and Barry gave him some of his.
Tomorrow we will try the coal merchants again because the situation is getting critical. There really haven’t been many coal buying opportunities since we left and had we have known this we would have brought more with us. One of our gas bottles ran out this evening too so we need gas and we also need diesel. Hopefully we can fulfil these desires in Skipton which is our next stop.
As a footnote to the boat flooding incident – We had a word with the lock keepers at Bingley and it occured as a consequence of us being 2 boats in the lock together and low water levels due to lock leakage. When we levelled the water in the two locks so we could go into the top one, because of the leakage it levelled at a lower level than normal (if you get what I mean). This meant the outlet for the ground paddle was above the waterline instead of below it. When I opened the ground paddle instead of going under the boat the water was able to spray upwards. If we had been 1 boat it would have just pushed us over but because we were 2 boats it didn’t have anywhere to go but up the side of the boat and over the top. Anyway it has been established that if we followed the instructions for operating the locks, as we did, this was actually the problem because if they leak badly the levels need ‘tweaking’, which we obviously didn’t know. But we do know now.
