HEBDEN BRIDGE

SUNDAY 4TH JULY

Before we left Todmorden we had a wander around the town, the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire, until a reorganisation, passed right under the splendid Town Hall as does the infant River Calder. Statuary at the top of the Town Hall depicts the cotton spinning of Lancashire on the left and agriculture and industry on the Yorkshire side. There is a rich and varied mix of arcitechture in this wealthy town, plus a canal side Lidl store where we were able to refill the barrels with wine and beer.

We were joined by N.B. Convair and her crew as we continued down the ten locks to Hebden Bridge, the locks were evenly spaced out and our surroundings were still rural with the remaining old mill chimney dotting the landscape.

By the time we arrived in Hebden Bridge the shops had closed, but we wandered around the centre and spotted the old pack horse bridge crossing the River Hebden, which not surprisingly has given the town its name. The town is a mixture of old mills, now reincarnated as shops, dedicated to providing the visiting walker with their every need and distinctive weavers cottages, where wool was woven on hand looms. All traces of soot have been scrubbed from the stones and it all looks very smart. The town is also very green; The Alternative Technology Centre is based here by he canal side (www.alternativetechnology.org.uk) and apart from Boots and the Co-op every shop is privately owned.

We retired for the night determined to discover more of this town tomorrow.

THE GREAT WALL OF TOD

SATURDAY 3RD JULY 2010

A meeting was arranged for this evening with friends Geoff and Annie who live at Marsden, which is at the East end of the Standedge Tunnel, on The Hudderfield Narrow Canal. The decision had been taken not to cruise this route as neither Jacquie or I really fancied the three mile plus trip through the tunnel or the 42 locks leading to it, so Geoff and Annie agreed to meet us at Todmordon

We stopped for water after the first two locks and then continued down the remaining 10 locks, under the first skew railway bridge in England, probably the world and past the immense brick wall that stops the railway line from falling into the canal, four million bricks it took to build, but sadly it doesn’t make for a particularly exciting photo
.

Ahead of us was the first guillotine lock that I had encountered, John operated it via our BW key and we passed under it and the road and emerged right into the centre of Todmorden where BW had provided excellent moorings with full facilities. The Golden Lion pub shared the same stretch, but it seemed very quite.

We were enjoying an al fresco dinner on the canal side with Geoff and Annie when unfortunately it was cut short when they were called away to collect a sick daughter, but we agreed to meet up again on Wednesday, probably at Cooper Bridge.

It was noticed how quiet the pub was when we turned in earlier than expected, but at one o’clock in the morning we were awakened by lots of shouting and yelling, I was already out of bed and pulling on my shorts when I felt the boat rock as somebody jumped onto the roof,. Fearful for Jacquie’s roof-top flowers, I shot out the rear hatch, letting everybody know that I was prepared to kill if they didn’t get of the boat. They must have thought I sounded as if I meant it, as I by the time I got fully onto the rear deck there was no one on the boat.

John joined me moments later and we stood guard until two o’clock when the pub closed and the noisy revellers tottered off home. This has been our only experience of silliness and is to be expected if you moor close to a pub especially at a weekend.
Our wives welcomed us back to bed and we slept soundly late into Sunday morning.

THE SUMMIT

FRIDAY 2ND JULY 2010

Right on time Ray, in his distinctive blue BW shirt was on top of the lock waving us in to the highest broad-beam lock in England and we paused as we exited the lock for a celebratory photograph.

The crossing of the summit was grand, the sunshine showing off the hills to their absolute best and Ray met us at the East end of the summit to set us of on our down hill path, it should be much easier now as we would be taking a lock full of water with all the way, in fact so much so that it was washing over the top of the lock gates.

We only went down six locks, stopping just before lock 30 to visit the Gordon Rigg garden centre, but as the scenery was so splendid we stayed the rest of the day, sunbathing on some handy stone slabs and lunching with a bottle of fizz in recognition of our safe delivery over the Rochdale Summit.

In the evening we trooped down into the village of Walsden to the famous Grandma Pollard’s fish and chip shop, refreshing ourselves on the way in the snug of a convenient little canal side pub. Without doubt the fish chips and mushy peas, served to us in the open air were the best that any of us could recall eating before. We returned to SKYY with the biggest vanilla slice and custard tart you can imagine, yummie!!

SCRAPPING THE BOTTOM

THURSDAY 1ST JULY 2010

Fortunately the water level had risen and with the advantage of a boat coming the other way. bringing a lock full of water with it, there was just enough to get through the first few locks, but on several occasions John had to reverse and get the bow back into the channel as we steadily made our way up past the old Courtaulds factory.

As SKYY entered lock 41 she did get stuck on the sill, a note on the lock said not to draw off water from the upper pound, but to phone the lock keeper. We waited twenty minutes, but when no reply was received to my phone message, we let just enough water in to scrape over the sill and into the lock with enough water left to climb the remaining three locks.

There are delightful moorings provided just before West Summit Lock 37 and here we would have to stay until Ray the lock Keeper would hopefully set us on our way over the Summit first thing tomorrow morning.

Our surrounding was so tranquil and private that it was decided that all the men would be given a haircut. John was first, Jacquie efficiently handling the electric clippers, I was next and finally a pretend session on Duggie, just to get him used to us using clippers on him.

A walk along the summit was encouraging as there appeared to be plenty of water up here, not to mention the wonderful views. We refreshed ourselves in the Summit pub; people are so friendly and helpful up north, there was half a dozen eggs on one of the tables and Jacquie asked the person who she thought might have owned them where he had got his eggs from, he straight away offered to drive me the half mile or so to the free range egg small holding, I accepted his offer and soon returned with eggs so fresh they were still warm! And he reluctantly accepted a pint as thanks.

It was a relatively early night as we had to be up and ready to go at 8.30 the following morning

FEELING FLAKEY

WEDNESDAY 30th JUNE 2010

Kim and John arrived earlier than expected allowing us time to walk up to Hollingworth Lake. This beautiful lake had been dug as a reservoir for the Rochdale Canal, but like most of the other reservoirs it can no longer be used to supply the summit and is now used only for leisure. After a refreshing drink by the lake, one by one we succumbed to temptation and four 99’s complete with chocolate flake were devoured, thus setting the pattern for giving into temptation for the rest of the week.

I had phoned BW and booked our passage over the summit for Friday morning, another 8.30am start and to take some of the strain of Thursday we pulled the pins at 5pm and were through the first three locks without two much trouble, but we did have to stay in the centre of the canal as the water was quite low.

We stopped before lock 45 and John and I strolled up towards the summit and was dismayed to see the pound beyond 39 to be virtually empty, we could only hope that by the morning some water would have flowed down as the summit was up to level.

On our return we finished this beautiful day with a candlelit dinner besides the lock

THROTTLED

MONDAY 28TH TO TUESDAY 29TH JUNE 2010

We were on our own now and almost immediately were passing under the M62 in the culvert that was the entrance to a local farm before the canal was restored. This was the cause of the canal being breached and lock beams sawn off by the aggrieved farmer back in 2006, but piece appears to have broken out now. The pontoon that serves as the towpath through the culvert had only just been replaced following vandalism.

Getting through Rochdale town centre unscathed seems to a major concern, but we only saw interested passers by, maybe that the school children were safely in their classes helped. However in the top of the two town centre locks SKYY came to a halt, not a fouled propeller this time, but a broken throttle cable. RCR to the rescue and within two hours, all done and we were on our way again. The very efficient engineer turned out to be, no less than Trevor, the founder and CEO of RCR, how’s that for service.

The swing bridge at Clegg Hall was swung and shortly afterwards we tied up in a lovely fold of the Pennines at Littleborough. We were going to wait the arrival of our stalwart crew, Kim & John to join us here on Wednesday so we had plenty of time to discover this little town and take advantage of the nearby Co-op.

JOURNEYS END

SUNDAY 27TH JUNE 2010

The two boats cast off about 11am and made light work of the ten locks to Slattocks. Both boats were needing water and our guide showed no sign of a water point until the other side of the Summit, but a sign outside, what was, the lock keepers house at Slattocks Top Lock offered the use of their hose and whilst both boats were side by side in the lock we filled our tanks to the brim.
It was the day for the England versus Germany FIFA match, Pete and Marie thought that the Hopwood Arms pub, would be the ideal place to watch it, as we moored up by he road just before the pub. Jacquie and I relaxed in the sunshine, but before the end of the match the dejected pair wandered back to Jammin and started to pack up their kit as sadly they have to work and the boat would be abandoned until the next weekend. Jacquie, I and Duggie hugged our travelling companions and said our goodbyes as a chum arrived to collect them, hopefully we will meet again somewhere on the cut.

With the sad defeat of England we decided it would be a good idea to move just a little further away from the pub in case angry fans decided to take it out on SKYY and found the perfect mooring below a lock about half mile on.