From mwickett@decisionsolutions.com Mon May 3 21:39:58 1999 Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:09:59 +0100 From: Mark Wickett Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: Canals Mailing List Subject: TRIP REPORT: Out and About on the Cut - Day 1 [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] OUT AND ABOUT ON THE CUT >From Apperley Bridge to Barnoldswick and back - getting through persistent rain, strong winds, flurries of snow and five crews in eight days. Sunday: The morning was bright and sunny - as were we. Our holiday really started yesterday with a trip to the theatre (to see "Blast from the Past" which is okay but not brilliant - with no mention of a canal anywhere) so we were ready for our boating and the weather forecasts did nothing to discourage us. "So what if it rains? So what if it snows? We have a stove now and we don't have to get anywhere...!". Loading the boat took a couple of hours and by lunchtime we left a particularly aggressive swan (pecking away at the stern fender as we went along!) and made our way through the Apperley Bridge swing bridge and up past the rapidly increasing crowd of gongoozlers at Dobson Locks. Intermittent rain and a little wind were the only dampeners of our spirits: merrily swinging swing bridges and locking locks - pausing only to shelter from the rain under a road bridge at Shipley - until the shadows of Salts Mill persuaded us to stop for the evening after only five miles, five locks and five swing bridges. I set about cooking some tea, whilst Richard (Catherine's brother and our first crew of the week) lit the stove. It certainly warmed us all up - by the time we sat down with our pasta and veg in tomato sauce and bottle of Rioja, the doors and windows were flung wide open to cool down the interior of our boat. A short walk up the road to Fanny's Ale and Cider House completed the evening with some good beer courtesy of Timothy Taylor and the brewers of "Old Mill" (and some decent looking draught ciders for our return journey...) Tomorrow: Ninety feet up Bingley, hundreds of swing bridges and an adder... Mark & Catherine n.b. Ruddy Duck