From user@twaldron.softnet.co.uk Wed May 5 21:45:47 1999 Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 08:43:53 +0100 From: Terry Waldron Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: mailing list Subject: Trip Report: Aire & Calder: Part 2 B [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] 3 May Last night 2 amateur photographers took a number of photos of the boat and surroundings hoping for the pictures to be published in one of the canal mags. Away at 0930 along with Midama, the locks now much larger. Victoria Bridge and Leeds Bridge look good, both cast ironwork, scrolls on one and lattice on the other, both looking to have been recently painted. The Royal Armouries are passed, needs about 2 days to look round properly, have to give this a miss this time. Onto the river , a slight current, and the river fairly high but not in flood, surprising after the amount of rain in the past couple of weeks and the flooding elsewhere. The river not as pretty as the canal but has its own charm, fewer ducks and swans. The locks now hydraulically operated, 2 rows of buttons, one for operation and one with indicators behind, appears all interlocked and you cannot operate the gates until the water level indicator is showing, indicators not easy to see in the sunlight. Lemonroyd lock the largest so far, one of the deepest we have been in. Evidence on one side of coal mines, could not see if still working. Moored close to the Boat at Allerton Bywater, the wind blowing strong and not easy to get alongside, there are some rings in the wall but difficult to get a rope onto, the grass ontop has been recently cut (later we found this done by the landlord), the pub with its gardens only a very short walk away, but watch out for the deposits left by dogs. The 'crossroads' of Castleford are ahead, we take the right hand turn, a narrowboat crosses in front of us going very fast (well it looked fast compared to on the canals) but still giving plenty of room for us to turn. The Four boats in Kings Road Lock had some entertainment from a young well blessed lady (about 56HHH and NO BRA) in a lacy see through blouse with a ribbald humour, many cries of 'You dont get many of them to the kilo' from the boats in front. Finally moored Stanley Ferry nose to nose with a dutch barge, which ran its generator until 0100 (situated on their bow and less than 10ft from our bedroom) and just before the aqueduct, had to put out tyres here as the steelwork piling very large and difficult to get the fenders onto it.Many boats moored, most going to Sowery Bridge for the Boat Rally. Part 2C to follow - Calder and Hebble and Huddersfield.