Narrowboat AREandARE

From the 2009 & 2010 tantalising tales, traumas and stunning photographs of Barry (photographer) and Sandra (writer) from New Zealand aboard NB 'Northern Pride', to the stories of their 2013 return journey, purchase of 'AREandARE', progress on sustaining their live aboard continuous cruiser lifestyle, and Barry's quest to gain residency and 'Indefinite Leave to Remain' in UK ...

Tuesday 4 August 2009

The end of the Northern line

Some of Barry's York photos from his chilled weekend 'home alone' ...


The busy River Ouse in York Centre
Clifford's Tower shots (thanks for the free entry pass Catherine!)






View of the York Museum from Clifford's Tower - named after Roger De Clifford who, folllowing the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, was hung in chains from its battlements

The clock tower on the museum

Chimney pots everywhere


The River Foss which meets the River Ouse in York

Just liked the colours

View of York Minster

Another view of the River Foss

A mostly very well-kept city, though Barry did inform a young man doing a survery that they need to empty the rubbish bins a bit more frequently!

Quaint sweet shop

A large proportion of Yorkians (what is someone from York called I wonder?!) cycle to and around the city

Breathtaking every time ...


Oh dear, is it crumbling?

Barry keeps finding these erections in front of Cathedrals! (a Roman column found under the Minster in the 1970's)

Constantine the Conqeuror I presume, looking conquered?

Inside the Minster

Looking up the Minster

Horsing around at the Minster

Sneaking a peek at the Minster

No, please, not more Minster ...

A little church very near the Minster but not many visitors!

The old and the obsolete!

Part of the city wall


A virgin balloon in flight

The very ornate Lendal Bridge - you can only see the angel from the river!

York Boat trips - eight pounds a ride up and down the river!

The King's Arms pub (the flooding pub) through the arch. Very cheap beer there


The Red Boats - also for hire


Almost like a scene from Paris

The steam train on the way out from York, with about ten very full carriages

The ruins of the Norman Church in the museum gardens


There was some poor wedding photographer chasing around after this bridal party, Barry's sympathy goes out to him!

The grey squirrels were very friendly around here
He would've taken food from my hand I'm sure, if I'd had some

Kath and Sandra chilling in the museum gardens after a morning in York

Kath looking gorgeous in one of her delightful weekend purchases from Bath!

We had a busy boating day, cruising up to Ripon and back to Boroughbridge! We need to be back in York tomorrow afternoon for Kath’s train and hopefully to meet up with Catherine again on the boat.

There were eight locks to negotiate on this part, four on each journey, with extremely heavy gates once more and deep, slow filling locks. The strange thing about the locks up here is that due to their location, when I unwind the paddles I can’t see when they open or how much water is flooding out which is a little scary! But thankfully we made it through without any mishaps. Part of the journey took us onto the Ripon Canal, which is the most northerly canal in England’s 2,000 mile waterways system.

Ripon is a very attractive town, it’s a shame we only had a few hours to explore. We also missed the Hornblower – every night at 9pm a horn is blowed at the four corners of the Obelisk in Ripon Market Place to ‘set the watch’. The tradition hasn't been broken since the 15th century! This ceremony celebrates the time in the middle ages when the first citizen, the Wakeman, was responsible for crime prevention in the city from 9pm to dawn. Isn’t that an amazing tradition to continue?

Ripon has a splendid Cathedral, as do most English cities; well actually it can’t be called a 'City' unless it has one! Despite them all being spectacular to look upon, they all sort of start to merge into one after a while. We had a quick look-see in the doorway and took a couple of shots from outside, but that was our limit. If you want to learn more, go to: http://www.riponcathedral.org.uk/. An interesting snippet is that there is a Saxon Crypt inside, built by Saint Wilfrid in 672, and it's the oldest existing one in England.

We also visited the Courthouse Museum as they didn’t charge us an entry fee due to there only being 8 minutes left till closing time! It was full of the history pertaining to convicts being transported to Australia (160,000 apparantly!) in the early 19th century, so was fascinating to read in the time we had. The uncomfortable part was reading about the dreadful behaviour of these people to the Aboriginals in their homeland. The English brought with them alcohol and disease, things that Aboriginies had not previously encountered; subsequently many of them perished. The ‘invaders’ then built walls and towns and chased away the ‘vicious natives’ – bloody English, they really do have a lot to answer for in my opinion.

A swift about turn late afternoon, and back to Boroughbridge for an overnight mooring – a good day’s work for the lock girl!
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Barry's a little behind (and a very cute behind he has if I may say so!) on the photo uploads, so today's will be on tomorrow! We have lots of visitors over the next couple of weeks so we are giving them our time and fitting in the blog where we can, so please perservere with us ...

2 comments:

  1. Nice photo's, need a few more of the Minster....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Barry ..you captured the beauty of York ..one of my most favourite places in the UK...hugs Maggie x

    ReplyDelete