After Helen going home for a work thing and me being left aboard to get on with some of those little jobs that never seem to get done, followed by a good clean through, we got under way heading towards Leeds.
The heavy rain of the previous day had given way to good weather and after the water level went up very quickly it came down just as quickly.. Needless to say the flood gates were open. The foot bridge over the lock has been closed for quite a while now it seems.
Here we are at the great divide, left to Wakefield and the Calder and Hebble and right to Leeds and the Leeds/Liverpool. It is a while since we have been to the other end of the Aire and Calder so we turned right.
At first the river has a natural flow and with the lovely sunny weather it was very picturesque with not another boat moving either.
In our old edition of Pearson's he likens the area to that of a WWI battlefield, but time is a great healer and it is a very pleasant trip today. The river is a lot quieter now than it was in working days, unlike many more southern canals. Here in the site the the loading basin of the Saville Colliery. It looks like they loaded Tom Puddings here as the jetty is very long to accommodate them in strings.
After deep mining ended in the area open cast mining continued and St. Aidan's Opencast mine was to the north of the river. In 70's the there was a breach in the navigation that flooded the mine. There remaining coal was too valuable to lose so British Coal dug a new route for the canal that cost £20 Million and it was done to a generous size too. This 'new' river has also bedded in and doesn't now look like a motorway, but the white painted post reveal the length of it.
The first lock of the day is Lemonroyd Lock. These push button locks certainly look large when you are down the bottom of them!
We stopped to get rid of the rubbish and fill up with water at the top but quickly got going again. Just at Fleet Bridge there was a lock down to the river from the cut to get access to some mills that have long gone. The short arm was taken on by an oil depot and up until not too long ago products were delivered by water.
I thought that we had the first view of the distant hills here but it turned out to be a rubbish dump. An other worked out opencast mine had been filled in with rubbish. These days with mutlifuel power stations like at Ferrybridge, wouldn't it be ideal to use large barges to take the suitable waste from the west riding conurbations to burn there, rather than fill up every hole there is.
In the previous photo you can just see this boat. They can't have much faith in their ability to steern the boat if they need fenders like this!
This must be the ugliest boat I have seen on the canals, but as it is an hotel boat and always seems to have plenty of guests when we see it I shouldn't moan. It works between Leeds, Goole and Keadby. Perhaps not very romantic names on the canal gazetteer, but the waterways are nice and varied, plus the added bonus for the operators that there is only one lock that they will have to use muscle for, the rest are electrified.
I flood closed Thwaites Mill in 1975, three years more than 100 years since it opened as a flint grinding mill for the pottery trade using two water wheels. It was later taken on as an industrial museum and now is open to the public, despite another flood a couple of years ago. On the left is the manager's house which would have been worth a look just by it's self.
At Kostrop Fall Lock the river used to be separated from the canal by an island that formed a cut with Kostrop Flood Lock at the other end. The island has now been removed and the river and canal use the same water course. I assume it is something to do with flood alleviation. You can see the old flood lock cut to the left, now now entrance and we are now using the river to the right.
The approach to Leeds starts with several mills that have been nicely converted to apartments. The service, to the left also has some visitor moorings. There are also some more a little before Leeds Lock.
There is plenty of work going on by the Royal Armouries as you can see. They are putting in a 'moving weir' and other things to assist once again in flood alleviation. The Armouries are to the left. We were lucky to find a spot on the pontoon in the dock that was made to measure. I was disappointed to learn that several of the cruisers and a narrowboat had been on the 48hr pontoon for a week or more. Not good when the C&RT office is just over the white footbridge, and a hire boat came along looking for a mooring and was disappointed.
Once moored we called my cousin Karen and we had a good catch up and a bit to eat before heading to the Palace and then saw her off on the bus, until tomorrow.
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