Back at Castleford.

We were heading up the Aire and Calder and we realised that we had never been in this direction before. It is funny how it looks so different'.

Just a reminder of the coal trade on the bank near Cow Lane Bridge. Coal would have been tipped from a rail wagon or a lorry to fill up a barge of 'tom pudding'.

The canal seems to cut through a rock outcrop and there is also evidence of quarrying alongside the cut. It seems that there is a limestone ridge here and it was used for building and lime making here at Gaggs Bridge.

It seems as if there has been a mill on roughly this site for hundreds of years. There was a windmill first. The mill belongs to Allied Mills and has survived a recent closure threat. They own 12 mills in the UK at the moment.

As you approach the lock at Ferrybridge the cooling towers of the old power stations are quite 'other worldly' as they dominate the skyline, dwarfing everything below them.

When you get closer it gets more so. We noticed that the gates are open all the way through so no stopping. The gauge looked as if the level in the canal was about 0.4 below the normal level so I was surprised that they weren't keeping water in the cut.

Once we passed under the old Great North Road and the even older bridge we could see that there was work well advanced on the new multifuel plant at the Ferrybridge site. It will burn refuse along with commercial and industrial waste that includes wood. It is a three year build and will have created 500 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs and will produce 90MW that would be enough to supply 160,000 homes.

The A1M bridge is even bigger and better than the previous bridges we have passed under. We didn't see another boat on the move at all.

As we had never been this way before I hadn't realised that there was a footpath by the old railway bridge. This must mean a nice round walk from Castleford and Fairburn Ings RSPB site is possible.

I liked the look of our wake as we gently rounded the bends in the river in the very calm day. It makes it look as though we are racing along.

It looks as though more work has been done in the old Fryston Colliery Basin with concrete and railings been erected. There is no works at the bank so if there is to be a marina here you would have thought that there would have to be a flood gate on it.

The Weldale Colliery Basin doesn't seem to have been altered and it was that colliery that first started dumping slag and waste on Fairburn Ings at the request of the Aire and Calder Co to try to prevent flooding of the north bank. However subsidence made the land flood too. The railway bridge and line were put in when slag was brought from all the mines in the area.

We were soon at Bulholme Lock to find a boat coming down. Helen likes these key driven locks and we were soon up on the cut. I pulled over at the water point to pick her up and top up at the same time. We pulled over to the other side of the canal and moored up.

We walked in to Castleford as Helen had some letters to post, and so it would have been rude to not call in to the Junction for a pint. On the way we walked round the end of the dry dock at Castleford. It used to be owned by Hargreaves barge owners and would build and repair vessels for themselves. I'm not sure I have seen such a large dry dock, one that would take four narrow boats or two barges.