After a rather long interlude, the reasons for which we’re still awaiting a blog update from mum and dad, Oliver’s travels now continue onwards (or should I say backwards) as we now turn around and head back towards home.

We now have a  sparkling engine bay and a brand new engine fitted, thanks to Colin and John at Rodley

It also so happened to be a certain special somebody’s Birthday – yes we have birthday girl Sarah aboard!

We stopped at Saltaire to have a look around, there was a festival this weekend and lots of stalls out in the market selling scrumptious looking goodies, but we’re well stocked up already so managed to resist the temptation.

We moved on from their to the double staircase at Dowley Gap…. Mum and Dad’s favourite staircase….NOT. Nice enough mooring though!

Last night we had a present surprise.  At 21:15 we saw a double rainbow.

Today we travelled on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway from Keighley to Oxenhope on a diesel and back on the steam train.

It was an interesting journey inspite of the weather and the carriages were much as we remembered from journeys in our youth.

Perhaps though the gas lights were a bit before our time.

Oakworth is particularly well known as the station that featured in the file The Railway Children.

Note the “Ladies Room”.  They expected special treatment in those days with their own waiting rooms.

Damems claims to be Britain’s smallest standard-gauge railway station.  It is only one carriage long and anyone wishing to alight here must inform the guard and travel in the first carriage.

There is a railway museum in Oxenhope which we looked around and found the following on one of its notice boards:

Haworth is world famous as the home of Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë who wrote their books whilst living at the Parsonage in the village.  All the sisters died young; indeed, the average life expectancy in Haworth at that time was around 28.  Not only was this due to the awful climate (still with us today!) but also because until 1860 the main supply of water ran from the moors, through the graveyard, to a pump by the Black Bull.

We can fully understand the sentiments about the weather!

Romy and Peter stopped off on the way back at Riddlesden Hall a quite small but interesting local NT property.

This was the brightest bit of the day.

Oh dear.  What can we say.  Here we sit with the rain coming down in heavy showers.  At least there are no more hailstones.  We have reached Stockbridge after a short trip through some very pleasant wooded areas.  One of the swing bridges (196?) has a lock that has to be lifted vertically and weighs around 5 ton and a rotating mechanism that needs a team of horses to move it.  The good news is that it has been recently painted!

We are looking forward to a drier day tomorrow, a trip on the train and visit to East Riddlesden Hall.

Judith left us today to compete in The Round The Island Race catching a train from Skipton at 08:26 and arriving back in Poole at 16:25.

Peter and Romy visited SpecSavers, walked up the Springs Branch and bought some pies.

We headed out of Skipton stopping for twenty minutes at the water point.

Then we cruised slowly through Low Snaygill, Low Bradley and Kildwick opening several swing bridges en route.  One had electric barriers and an electric release mechanism but required manual effort to open it.  This caused a little confusion before we realised we were expected to push.

We moored in Silsden in a quiet spot alongside a relatively new housing development.  We were advised that it was better, deeper water near the banks and better TV reception just before bridge 192 but we stayed put.

We had an enjoyable walk through Silsden which is quite an interesting little town with a Beck that runs underground in a few places before running under the canal.

We saw the strange sight of a cat swimming in the canal with the ducks.  Neither the cat nor the ducks enjoyed this.  Two young girls rescued the cat following instruction from Pat and we phoned the owner.  Eventually he turned up but did not appear to offer the girls anything for their efforts – sad.  We did not take any pictures of the cat.  That would have been unfair as it was obviously in distress.  We did not have the same level of sympathy for the monkey that we saw in the water a little later.

Today it rained and rained and ……

We attended to the mundane matters of daily life on iPads, iPods, iPhones and MacBooks and matters of financial import.  We sat for some two and a half hours in the Herriott enjoying a second lunch here and the use of their very good wi-fi.

There’s not a lot more to say really.

We  left our pleasant countryside mooring near Thorlby at around 11:00 and headed into Skipton.  There were quite a lot more boats around today and we were quite lucky to find an excellent mooring in Skipton overlooking Eller Beck.

Although it was a bit grey again our wild flowers were always there to cheer us up.

It was a very short walk to the Rhubarb Restaurant at the Herriot Hotel where we had an excellent meal.  The “50% off all food at weekday lunchtime” deal made this great value for money. Good food, good service and free wi-fi.

We then had a walk around Skipton which we all thought to be a very attractive place.

Peter was very happy to find himself under the sign of the Woolly Sheep.

Shame he was Forced into the pub again in the evening to get this blog to you but dedication  to the cause could not be denied.

We planned to have a good walk today originally thinking we might moor somewhere just after the last of the three locks we still had to negotiate on our way down through Gargrave.  This proved to be impossible and we walked along the towpath testing the bottom with Oliver’s pole at frequent intervals.  Who did we meet along the way?

A large ledge and shallow sloping sides to the canal forced us to continue to just past bridge 174, the swing bridge near Thorlby.  Just before swing bridge 173 we had come across a boat firmly wedged across the canal.  A “crash stop” put us in danger of ending up “in the same boat” but we escaped and sorted out “Davro” before continuing on our way.

From here the three youngest members of the crew walked to the trig point at the top of Sharp Haw (357 metres).

Part of the outward journey was along the Dales High Way and was easy to find.  The return, which looked quite straightforward, proved to be quite an adventure as paths marked on the map failed to materialise on the ground.  Black skies threatened behind us at times but the rain kept away.

Why would a stile have a gate?

Oliver gets a new look.

We discovered, after travelling for an hour or so this morning that there were some good mooring places after bridge 163, where quite a few boats were already situated.  Had we not spent so long seeking deep water the previous evening we could have moored up here overlooking some lovely countryside.  It is however a bit exposed.  This was a very pretty section of the canal with some great views.

Having been asked by the lock keepers we waited for another boat and descended the locks at Bank Newton with a family from Cambridge who had their own boat at Daventry.  One of them turned out to be a friend of a friend of Judith’s.  They had decided to hire a boat from “Bear Boat” to avoid the trip up North on their own boat.

We decide to stop at Gargrave and have fish and chips for supper.  Although the chippie had a sign saying it was open from 4pm to 7pm it failed to answer the phone and turned out to be closed.  So we dined on some excellent pork chops with pepper sauce followed by gooseberry pie made with gooseberries bought on our trip around the village.

We were a bit concerned that we might be going in the wrong direction …

However after a short distance we travelled through the Foulridge Tunnel after a wait of around 20 minutes.  We later found that entry from the north is on the hour for 10 minutes and from the south on the half hour.

We had a walk around the reservoir and into the town.  Both parts were very enjoyable.  Some splendid property around the reservoir and in the town.  Everywhere looked well cared for.

Lower Park Marina has a very smart web site – a bit smarter than the reality but it was nevertheless a good place for a pump out, top up the diesel and water, get a new gas bottle and buy a few odds and ends.  It is all along the canal side rather than being off the main cut.

We found some ground puddles that were new to us that involved lifting a lever which had to then be closed to allow the gates to close properly.

There was nowhere to moor between the marina and Greenberfield Locks so we decided to go down the locks and into the countryside.  There was very little depth of water by the banks until we reached the straight section of the canal after bridge 159.  Here we were entertained by a family of swans.

The countryside is still lovely and improving even if the weather is not fantastic.

28th June additional note:

Apologies to this who, having become addicted to the blog, have been suffering withdrawal symptoms.  Internet connections have been really bad and I have had to force myself into a bar and to buy a pint in order to catch up.

24th June became the day for leaving.  The UK voted to leave Europe and we have left the detritus of Blackburn far behind us.

There was some heavy rain in the morning and Peter decided this would be an opportune time to replace the water pump.  Peace now reigns.   Burnley was so very pleasantly different.

We went up several locks with Aussies Alison and Trevor. The lock gates very heavy and some had horizontal handles that we had to walk around on one or two occasions. Romy and Alison struggled with two of them on one gate.