Inching Through Shallow Water

Wednesday 2nd September, 2015 at Milnsbridge.
We woke to a bright morning but with a tangible hint of autumn in the air. The early reflections provided an almost perfect mirror image.

Yesterday afternoon, we had left the centre of Huddersfield to start the climb through the 42 locks to take us up to the Standedge Tunnel. These locks are numbered 1E to 42E, E stands for East (of the Tunnel) - not "easy" - more's the pity! Our progress had been thwarted, as there was virtually no water in the pound between lock 1E and 2E, so we'd had to moor up for the night below 1E after the C&RT promised to come and help us through this morning. Sure enough, just after 8:00am, Phil arrived and started to flush water down into the pound. At 9:00am, we went through the lock but the pound was still very low.

The handsome (and huge) former mill building next to the lock is now the University's School of Computing and Engineering. We could see that much of the interior had been retained, with high arched brick ceilings. What a splendid use for this old building! It was so high that M couldn't get it all into the photo, even with the camera turned round to "portrait".

Our progress was extremely slow and we frequently ran aground. It was very difficult to keep MM in the middle of the channel as any obstruction in the middle pushed her off to one side. Sometimes R had to resort to using the pole and twice we were helped by two contractors, who caught a rope and pulled MM back into the middle. They had been watching our slow progress from the windows above and came to see if they could help.  Stout fellows!

The pound between Lock 1E and 2E is only 400 yards long - but it was an hour before we finally went through a short tunnel and in to Lock 2E.

Progress continued to be slow through 3E and 4E. This section had been rebuilt when the canal was restored and is a series of tunnels and narrow concrete channels. Not very pretty, but it works - although the water levels continued to be low. Going through the three pounds, R was down the weed hatch a total of four times to remove detritus from the propellor.

Mainly it was plastic bits, plastic bags and rope but on one occasion it was a slightly used high-vis jacket.

Phil had helped us through the first four locks and he did a brilliant job; we certainly couldn't have done it without him. It was a relief to leave this section behind and get into some deeper water. From Lock 4E, we were on our own again and M was delighted to find that the next locks all had the familiar paddles and mechanisms we are used to. A welcome change from some of the stranger mechanisms on the Aire & Calder and Calder & Hebble Navigations! 
There were literally dozens of mill buildings lining the canal, most of them had been renovated and are still in use, although some were derelict. A very impressive one was Britannia Mill, dated 1861 and now being used by a fabric contracting company.

Finally we arrived at Lock 8E, our target for today, as we had been told that there are good moorings immediately after it. M grizzled that it was jolly difficult trying to push these gate beams while standing in the road!

We moored up for the day between Lock 8E and 9E, which is only a couple of hundred yards further on. While we were having lunch, the boat that had moored up behind us last night went past. They carried on through the locks above us as they need to get back to their Caldon Canal base as soon as possible.
Around teatime, we walked up to take a look at the town and to reconnoitre the locks above for tomorrow.

It was a jolly good thing that we did, as we found that the very short pound between Lock 10E and 11E was completely empty!

The people on the boat which has gone past us had left the paddles open (that is the thing sticking up on the left) and drained the pound. R went back to MM to get a windlass to close the paddles and we also phoned Phil at the C&RT so that he was aware. Luckily there was a fair bit of water flowing down past Lock 11E and he said that it would probably fill the short pound by morning. We shall see!
Very sad to see a child's bike at the bottom of the canal.

Due to the problems with low pounds and stuff on the propellor, it took us four hours to do two miles and eight locks. Slow indeed, but as M observed, it was faster than some of our jourmeys on the M25! Rain curtailed our trip into the small town, but the mooring seems very quiet.

The response of the C&RT over the last 24 hours cannot be faulted, especially Phil, we couldn't have done it without his help.
Thank you, Phil!
As we write this, the sky has cleared and we are again treated to a brilliant sunset.

Today: 2 miles, 8 locks and 6.1 hours.
Trip: 278 miles, 181 locks and 186.1 hours.