A Week in the Dales and a Happy Reunion

 Wednesday 1st to Monday 6th June 2022 in the Yorkshire Dales.

Between Gargrave and East Marton on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal is a section that is often referred to as the "Curlie-Wurlies". It is an isolated length of the canal that twists around the contours above the valleys of the Yorkshire Dales, always with a backdrop of the Pennines in the distance. Having dropped off M at the bus stop to go home, R and MM returned to this beautiful section and moored up. The views are spectacular, especially when illuminated by the evening sunshine. M was very disappointed to have to leave this, arguably the loveliest length of waterway in England.  She said she will always remember the hauntingly lonely sound of the curlews and the call of the lapwings.

R spent some time washing MM down and scrubbing away the stain on MM's waterline caused by the orange coloured water in the Harecastle Tunnel.

To R's great delight, our Australian friends Shelley and Harley arrived on their boat n.b. "Lazy Bee" and moored up next to us.

Because of Covid, it has been over four years since we have seen them and it was a delight to spend time with them and catch up with each others' news. They very kindly invited R on board for dinner for both the nights that we stayed together and the talk went on long into the night accompanied by a certain amount (i.e quite a lot!) of excellent wine. M was very much missed but we did manage to have a four way phone conversation at one point and we resolved to try to get together again later in our mutual travels. Shelley and Harvey are wonderful folk, very adventurous and very sociable - and great fun.

Harley noticed that the "Pennine Way" branched off the towpath just a couple of hundred yards behind us, so we decided to walk along it to Gargrave, a distance of about two miles. A wonderful walk across open fields with hardly a building in sight!

Of course, our reward in Gargrave was to introduce Shelley and Harley to The Dalesman for a delicious lunch!

Back at our mooring, Harley produced his little drone, with which he takes great aerial photographs. Such a clever little thing, it even comes back to where it started if you ask it to!

 This is the two of us watching the drone watching us!

 

We were moored next to a memorial bench, dedicated to a gentleman's "favourite mooring".  We can certainly understand why it was such a favourite. The brass plate was quite tarnished, so Shelley got out the Brasso and cleaned it up until it was gleaming! Such a lovely, caring thing to do.

Sadly, on the Sunday morning, Shelley, Harley and Lazy Bee left to continue their journey on towards Leeds.

R was very sad to see them go. It had been so much fun spending time with them and we will certainly get together again before the summer is over.

R and MM set off in the opposite direction, through the three Barnoldswick locks and moored up for the night above the seven Barrowford locks.

The following morning nb "Little Dancer" arrived, wanting to go down the locks, so we did the locks together. What luck!

With their crew of six people, one of whom went ahead to set the next lock, we were down the flight in record time. Unfortunately, the top gates were all leaking very badly and, as MM is 60ft long (the maximum possible on this canal) MM's back deck kept getting flooded and a lot of water ended up in the engine room.

 Moored up in Burnley to await M's return tomorrow, it was down into the engine room to remove several buckets full of water and dry it out.

Over the week: 16 miles, 10 locks and 11.4 hours.

Trip: 182 miles, 125 locks and 106.2 hours.