Dragonflies and terrapins!

We said farewell to Jenny and David early this morning and set off towards Selby. Passing back through Knottingley and the industrialisation around here, we turned left onto the River Aire and shared the next three locks with a couple from Stoke-on-Trent who spend six months of the year living on their narrowboat and the remainder of the time in their house. It’s quite enlightening how many people do this, whether their country of residence is England or the Southern Hemisphere, and one day we hope to be able to afford to do it annually too!

The two men worked the locks today, as we were back to manual ones with very heavy gates – but the girls role of driving out of the locks and getting the boys back on board was quite a challenge as well with only tiny pontoons to get to. Still, everyone managed to get through and back on board without any mishaps.

Our route after the River Aire was the Selby Canal – very picturesque, though quite weedy again but not shallow like the Chesterfield so long as you kept to the centre of the waterway. It was also very clear so you could see the bottom for most of the journey which is quite unusual for a canal, because it's fed from a river at each end.

.

The canal-life was spectacular — teeming with tiny, iridescent blue dragonflies, along with the occasional huge brown one mimicking a miniature helicopter. Barry noted some very large fish swimming around, and even saw a terrapin at one stage sitting happily on a piece of wood watching the boats go by! We’d read at West Stockwith Lock that terrapins may be around, as people who’d had them as pets and got fed-up have been putting them into the canals and rivers in the area, and they've survived and thrived! Not such a good thing as they destroy some of the natural habitat of the waterways it seems, though heaven knows how they'll get rid of them now.

The Selby Canal

Not the sharpest of photo's, but amazing to see nonetheless!!

Arriving at Selby early afternoon, I went into town to check out the shops while Barry continued grinding on the front of the boat ready for de-rusting and painting. We need to find somewhere suitable for my mum and dad to park their car tomorrow night when come to stay with us. It’s not the poshest of areas around here, so it’s a bit of a worry. We were told that some kids had been untying the mooring ropes of the narrow-boats over the weekend; bless their cotton socks.

A mirror image of the gateway to Selby on the canal

While I was in town Barry said the lock-keeper came and tried to move on some young lads who were fishing and playing around the nearby swing bridge. They weren’t having any of it and just gave him lots of cheek, so he called the police and the local bobby came along on his bike and moved them along. They’ll probably be back again tomorrow! The likelihood is that their mum and dad are at work and they just have to find things to do with no money so they just hang around looking for mischief, as most young children are want to do given half a chance!

A short time later, the policeman returned and took Barry's name and number (well my number as Barry rarely turns his phone on!) in case he needed a statement at a later date. He'd been round to the boys grandma's home and she'd given him more abuse than the boys! No wonder they're the local trouble-makers, such a shame. He also said that the boys had accused the lock-keeper of hitting them (of course he didn't!). What is this country coming to? There was a poor teacher recently who was driven so crazy by the behaviour of some of his pupils that he actually ran one of them over. One can certainly have sympathy with him.

Checking out the humongous lock at Selby - we're going onto the River Ouse soon, another tidal one with a difficult to negotiate lock on the return journey, OMG!!!!

The River Ouse from town - the ancient railway bridge which would have been a swing bridge incredibly enough, but not sure if it still is

Some delightful shots of Selby Abbey at dusk ...

If you look closely above the doorway you'll notice three swan's - Benedict had a vision of these landing on the river and that's why the Benedictine's built the Abbey! (www.selbyabbey.org.uk)

The main street in Selby was quite expansive with a good deal of pubs, though quite a few of them were shut down as is the theme we're finding. Someone told us in Eggborough that 52 pubs across England are closing each week, not sure how accurate that may be but it looks possible from what we've seen.

Looks like the jolly Bachus, Greek God of wine, at the Londesborough Arms Hotel in town


The Abbey from the High Street with a crumbling momumental erection in the foreground!

Across the swing bridge from our mooring in Selby, with a dramatic cresent moon - if you look very closely there's a little boy swinging on the bottom corner and a cow jumping over


The swing bridge where the little blighters were fishing and causing mayhem!

The best of both worlds

Today we headed towards Selby as we'll meet up with my mum and dad for the night there, on Tuesday, on their way up to High Force near to Durham for their 54th wedding anniversary.

The current canal is a ‘broad’ one, with lots of large, swanky cruisers around who seem to not feel the need to slow down when they drive past moored narrowboats and subsequently we rocked and rolled all over the place on our mooring this morning. We're certainly noticing increasingly how England remains such a 'class' based society, and from what we've seen it's definitely the ones in the lower to middle classes who have the most style and friendliness! There’s a small element of that in New Zealand, but thankfully it’s a minority, which is so refreshing, and one of the reasons I choose to live there.

A cruiser motoring away leaving us rocking

In case anyone needs another power station photo!

The landscape is just covered with them here

Different scenery this time, a colliery (coal mine) at Knottingley

A line up of barges for the colliery

A boat building yard at the junction of the Aire & Calder canal and the River Aire


A dramatic flour mill squeezed between the canal on one side and the River Aire on the other

The lock onto the Aire River. We'll go through on the return from York
Guess what's in the background?!

A massive lock built for the big 700 ton barges

This was brought back to us once more after we moored up at a place called Ferrybridge, not far from Knottingley. We took a detour as we were informed that there was a good Morrison's supermarket close to the canal. However when we investigated from the mooring, all we found was some quite distressed looking buildings (mainly council houses), boarded up shops, and the odd skinhead type bloke walking around with his four-pack of Fosters and Alsatian dog, who should’ve looked quite menacing but actually appeared fairly harmless. We did, however, discover a local grocery store with a limited stock of provisions and got what we needed there - cash purchases only mind you!

.

The majority of live-aboard narrowboaters are great people who seem to have discovered the meaning of life, and are therefore choosing to live at a much slower pace whilst savouring their magic moments. However, they're obviously mostly folks in their later years who can afford not to work, or to work intermittently, so that would make a difference to their attitudes I suspect. They've also learned to survive happily on a limited budget, something we're becoming accustomed to now.

.

We thought we’d then turn around and go a bit further towards Selby, but Barry decided he’d do a bit of grinding on his new rear hatch first as we were in quite an isolated place. As he was preparing this, another narrowboat moored up and of course Barry got chatting to them and found out they were from Nelson, on the north of the South Island of New Zealand!

Jenny & David from Nelson

Originally from England, they'd lived in New Zealand since the late 1970’s, had bought their boat a few years ago and been coming back to England for the summer since then. There’s obviously a number of ex-pats who do this regularly – who choose not to live and work in England for a variety of reasons but still feel a need to come back to visit, whilst retaining the option of living in the Southern Hemisphere. I suggest it’s called ‘having the best of both worlds’!

So we had a very enjoyable evening on each others boats (is that called a boat crawl?) eating nibbles, drinking wine and Barry’s home (boat?!) brew; and then having a Sunday dinner (that's tea in English terms!) of beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Marvellous! What a joy this living spontaneously is.

The towpath to nowhere …

Our friends Sara and Fred, and their youngest children Tom and Alex, came to visit us today. They arrived bearing gifts of food, wine, beer and flowers from Waitrose - a real treat. We sat outside at the wooden table on the side of the moorings for a delicious picnic lunch.

Then it was time for a short ride up the canal. Captain Barry instructed Fred on the intricacies of driving a narrow-boat, whilst Sara and I sat chatting at the front with the boys. We did do a lock each though. They were both mechanised but no lock-keepers on duty – they must work a short day at weekends.

The first lock and Alex got to press the button to close the gates


Next was a quick run to the other end to let the water in

Sandra & Sara take it more leisurely

Fred in total control

Enjoying the sunshine at the bow

Barry & Fred stuck with the hard work - yeah right!

We share the lock with a couple of young guys with a line up of empty beer bottles beside them. It's a great sport this boating lark

Making it look easy

We meandered along until a place called ‘Eggborough’ where we moored up for the night, about five miles from Pollington where they’d left their car. Fred had brought three bikes which were on top of the boat, and he and the boys rode back along the towpath – or at least that was the plan …

Barry, Sara and I had a walk into the village, well the nearest pub, and sat out in the sunshine getting to know the locals. One lovely Yorkshire bloke told us his life-story in less than ten minutes following an unusual conversation opener - a gorgeous, young, lithe woman, straddled sexily on a rather large motorbike who rode past. The men were literally drooling into their John Smith’s!!

After an hour and a half, I phoned Fred to see if they were on their way back, with the reply that they still had a mile and a half to go! Bless the poor boys; it seems that part of the towpath was closed due to works and they'd had to detour through a corn field amongst other things and they were understandably, absolutely knackered when they finally got back to the boat in the car. They’ll be fast asleep in the car on the way home. Hopefully next time they’ll be able to stay the night and we’ll try and arrange it so that they don’t have to cycle back to their car!

Sadly Barry forgot to get a photo of everyone together, and didn't take a shot of Tom at all (sorry Tom!!). We've planned another date in September to catch up again so we'll make amends then.

Not the most attractive area for scenery around here, though it has it's own charm

This evening we sat out on the towpath watching the sun set, while a group of people in a small cruiser nearby have been having a great time with music, barbeque, lots of booze and some canal dipping. They must be mad, but looked like they were having a great time! As I’ve said previously, we never know what the next day will bring on the canals and rivers of England …

Dinner in the late sun, cheers. Note Barry's innovative seating arrangements!

This young guy from the party boat decided to bungy jump off the bridge without a bungy:

The water is deeper and cleaner on this canal I'd have to say - but would be blooming cold!!

A little industrial around here

The end of a lovely day

An uplifting, swinging time

It’s quite amazing how different each canal network is. Moving on up the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, we went through two mechanised locks - so much easier on my poor old back!

The first lock at Thorne with a swing bridge as part of it. You can't open the swing bridge until the lock has got to a certain level

The second one was a huge structure which was previously a double lock, but now only the front one works due to an accident a while ago, or so the skipper of the barge in front of us informed me.

Bramwith Lock is huge, bloody power stations get in everywhere!

'Ethel' from Sheffield, ferrying around a few elderly folks

Sandra entering the lock

On the way out (note from Sandra, crikey my bum looks big in this!!)

Shortly afterwards, Barry expertly negotiated a sharp right turn which lead us onto the dead straight New Junction Canal which has a plethora of lift and swing bridges. One of them had a manual swing bridge in the centre of a large mechanised lock. There were some incredible sights, real feats of engineering; Barry was well impressed!

At the end is the turnoff to Sheffield on the left, and north to the right

The aquaduct over the River Don.

The guillotine gates at either end are to stop the canal filling up when the river floods

Looks like the canal and river are merged, but there was about a 20 foot drop

Keeping her head through the first guillotine!!

Coincidence - or do the power stations create the weather?!

We weren’t quite so impressed with the BW lock-keeper at Skyehouse Lock and swing bridge, who asked if I was Australian and thought Barry was from South Africa! Goodness me, he knew how to insult us, lol! Except he was deadly serious bless him, no harm intended, very amusing. I think I’m going to have to go to some elocution lessons as people keep thinking I’m an Aussie, when I’m actually English but have lived in New Zealand for over four years!

Looks more like a guard house at a 'Psych(iatric)' house than a Sykehouse!

A very complex lock with a swingbridge in the middle

The lock-keeper wasn't in when we began but luckily returned just as Sandra was going to close the swing bridge before the gates at the end which apparantly would've shut down the mechanism! You need a degree in science to work these things!! Very few instructions!

New Junction Canal, a very straight stretch of 5.5 miles

One of the last canals to be constructed in England linking two canal systems

... and still those damn chimneys are everywhere!

Another aquaduct, this one over the River Went, don't know where it went though!

Maybe it went that way ...

I spent much of the day hand washing our dirty laundry, we've given up trying to find a launderette on the journey. At least it was a blustery and intermittently sunny day, so good drying weather.

Washing day

The lock at Pollington, ejecting a huge barge
Wouldn't want to meet that on a blind corner!

We moored up at a little place called Pollington, and spookily enough we were right next to a couple from Tasmania! We went to a quiz night at ‘The King’s Head’ pub up the road, six narrow-boaters (including us) along the moorings, from a variety of places, formed 'The United Nations' team. We did very well - 25 out of 40 and the winners got 27 so it was close! If only we hadn't talked each other out of a few answers that we would've got correct, the usual story!

What a fabulous pub, really friendly and a warm welcome from the landlord/quizmaster. They also brought round free sandwiches and cold black pudding (gross!), and there was a raffle and a cash prize number draw. An excellent evenings entertainment. It was fortunate that we were here on the right night, we’ve arrived at so many places along the way and just missed whatever organised function is on – most frustrating!

Stuart & Michelle (from Southend, sold their house and live on board permanently though dry dock it in winter),

Mike and Moira (origninally from Somerset and South Wales, lived in Tasmania for many years, been living on board and travelling around England for 2 years now)

Lovely company, thank you!

Post script - a couple of photo's of the boat shortly after the earthquake - whoops I mean after we hit the wall the other day on the Trent!!!

We have a number of visitors coming to see us over the next few weeks. Firstly on Saturday it’s Freddie and Sara, and possibly some or all of their offspring. They stayed and lived in Gisborne ages ago for a year or so, and Barry has kept in touch with them ever since (well Sandra has!). They'll be travelling to us from Sheffield and, depending on what happens, may be with us for a day or the weekend, so that’ll be compact but cool.