From mwickett@decisionsolutions.com Mon May 3 21:40:59 1999 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:43:30 +0100 From: Mark Wickett Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: Canals Mailing List Subject: TRIP REPORT: Out and About on the Cut - Day 4 [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] Isn't it terrible when your employer finds you enough work to do so you haven't got time to write up your trip report? Oh well, whilst I wait for NT Server to install on my new black box, I'll try and write a couple more days... OUT AND ABOUT ON THE CUT - day 4 Recap: Catherine, Richard and myself have cruised from Apperley Bridge to East Marton on the n.b. "Ruddy Duck". Wednesday: A lie in followed by a cooked breakfast was to set the scene for the day when our second crew - my in-laws - was to join the three of us. The rain held off until Pauline and George arrived and after a warming cup of tea, we set off towards Foulridge. Why is it that just as you've got a good fire going, there's locks to be done? At Greenberfield locks, we spent ages trying to work out the previous course of the canal under the old bridge before it ascended the staircase - were the locks all the other side of the bridge to the bottom of the current locks? We couldn't work out how it could get that high that quickly and the level of the bridge seemed to be between the lower and upper levels... Barnoldswick was upon us and we chugged past the roofs of the Rolls Royce factories and slowed past Lower Park Marina where we admired the painting being done on a narrowboat trying to hide its beauty behind a plastic tent. After passing through where the old railway bridge had been, we decided to stop for lunch. This was to be as far west as we got - hardly into Lancashire and we're turning tail and returning to the comfort of our beloved county. (Ironic really that no-one on board was from Yorkshire - in fact, two were Lancashire born and bred but we don't talk about that much in Bradford...!) Our journey home began with a nifty three point turn in the middle of the canal (the things you can do in a 36 foot boat!) and a short stop at Lower Park for a new gas bottle and a couple of anti-boater keys to replenish the supply for our descent to Bradford. Greenberfield was shared with n.b "Trelawney" and soon, East Marton's stubby church tower announced our destination for the night. A short and less energetic trip than usual, but catching up with family gossip was the order of the day, and a bottle of oaky Black Ridge Barbera/Cabernet prepared us for yet more draught Black Sheep and a meal at the Cross Keys. I don't know if they've changed hands since we were last here, or if it's just "out of season", but the choice of food was small and "all meals served with chips" was hardly inspiring. Undeterred, we ordered and enjoyed a reasonable meal - but we were disappointed after our previous visits to this pub. Catherine and I bode farewell to Richard, Pauline and George - and for the first time on our holiday, it was just the two of us. People often ask us: "don't you want some time to yourselves?" but we tell them we do get time to ourselves - even on a shorter boat such as ours, you can be "miles" from anywhere and anyone when you slip silently through a wooded cutting or fly across a valley on an aqueduct. Anyway, it makes the workload easier if we have help... Tomorrow: Two of us fight the wind and lose Mark Wickett n.b. Ruddy Duck