SATURDAY. For myself; another lazy day, Myra went to do some food shopping. Whilst she was away, I went to seek advice about a safe parking place for the car of our lad, Alastair who may be visiting us next weekend. I was told about a good spot and (of course) managed to find a couple of people with which to have a chat. One of them was a BW man that I was chatting to at Battyeford lock last Tuesday. His mate and himself were moving a tug and grab boat back to Castleford and arrived yesterday. He had asked for another man to help as they had to do a double pen at each lock owing to the combined length of the two boats, no extra help was given, so they made the best of it, but of course taking longer. One of the permanent moorers was telling me that he had been trying to get BW to dredge the moorings because his boat was aground and listing badly each time a barge went by. Nothing was done until he and his wife were woken one morning at 2.30am by all of the boat drawers falling out and emptying their contents onto the floor. He rang the canalphone line and was rung back by a sleepy BW manager who said ’Do you know what the time is, its 2.45am.’ When told of the problem, he was not impressed. However, the moorings were dredged soon after. We moved off after lunch for the short trip up river to Lemonroyd where we stopped on the visitor moorings above the lock. The lock was built by MacAlpine as was the new line of canal. This was required because in March 1988, the riverbank collapsed at St Aidans opencast mine and in flowed the river. Apparently, the volume of water entering the site was so great that the river below the breach flowed backwards for nearly half a day. The whole site was flooded to a depth of 70 metres. The official explanation was that the breach was caused by a geological fault in the river bed. The local theory is that the geological fault developed owing to the fact that the mine was excavated too close to the riverbank. The site is now occupied by a nature reserve. A converted working wide boat moored next to us, we had good chat with the crew as we were on our way out for a walk. Exploring the area, we found an elevated hide on the river bank. It was unlocked and inside had a selection of guides to British Birds and lots of information sheets on the walls. There was a log of sightings and pictures taken by members of the local society. The hide gave a clear view of the large reserve, it was a peaceful place where we spent a while.
The 2008 journey thus far: 199 Locks & 318.5 Miles & 19 Swing\Lift Bridges
Journeys using bus pass: 11
