Thursday 13th August, 2015 at Saltaire.
As we were moored up outside the Five Rise Café, we had decided to go there for breakfast. Actually "second breakfast", as they didn't open until 10:00am and we had cornflakes earlier to tide us over!
We had arranged to meet up with our good friends Judith & John, who were staying in Harrogate and were going to join us for breakfast and then the trip down the Five Rise lock flight.
But "the best laid plans"...and all that.... Five miles before they got to us, their camper van broke down - the water pump broke - so they didn't get to us after all. What a disappointment.
So, we went to the café for breakfast on our own to fortify ourselves for the adventure ahead. The café is a delight, as are the staff.
The weather was nice enough to sit outside to eat, and watch the goings on - for once, we were the gongoozlers!
The daughter of the café owners had received her A Level results this morning and had succeeded in getting in to her university of choice - York University - well done! She also received a lovely bouquet of flowers from the neighbours living next to the café.
We were tickled pink by this notice. Just a few errors - a 49
inch NAROW (sic) boat with 5 BIRTHS? Heaven forbid!!!
While we were having breakfast, the nice family on the hire boat nb "Isla's Drum" came up to the water point next to us. Matt, Caroline, Alison, Roberta and James - and a Teddy Bear - had come on to MM yesterday evening for a look around.
We said goodbye to "Isla's Drum" and, with some trepidation, went through the swing bridge and in to the top lock with Mike on nb "Runcible" - as M observed, a good name straight out of Edward Lear. Mike bore an uncanny resemblance to Nicolas le Prevost, one of M's favourite actors - but Mike assured her that he was no actor!
The lock is always manned with a permanant lock keeper and volunteers. In fact, the locks are padlocked out of hours and boaters are not allowed to go though the locks without expert assistance. We were lucky in that we had three professional helpers and so M was able to stay on MM throughout.
Only an aerial photo can do justice to this steep flight of locks. So, we scanned this one from the brochure from the café.
It's only once inside that you can appreciate the depth of these locks and the height of the gates, each of which is over twenty feet tall!
The locks are 60ft long and so is MM, so in order to open the bottom gates of each lock it was necessary to back MM right up against the cill of the lock behind her. This should not have been a problem except that the gates of the lock above were leaking and water then cascaded on to the taff rail and back deck of MM spraying water over everything and everyone! R ended up with very wet jeans and MM ended up with an inch of water in the engine room because the deck drains couldn't cope with such a deluge of water.
Finally we were out of the bottom lock with "Runcible" and cruising on to the next obstacle - the Bingley Three Rise - a quarter of a mile further on.
Again, there was a C&RT volunteer to help us through, although this time M got off the boat to help him. This flight included a strange arrangement of gate paddles that we had not seen before.
After the "Three Rise", comes the "Two Rise". By now, we were getting used to staircase locks, but it was very comforting to find another C&RT volunteer here. He only works on a Thursday, so we were very lucky!
At the bottom of the flight, we passed the landmark Damart factory, famous for thermal underwear. R's jeans were so wet by now that a good pair of thermals would have been welcome!
As we arrived in Saltaire, we heard from John and Judith that they had rented a hire car as it
looked as if their motorhome could be repaired by tomorrow, so they
were coming to find us. What excellent news! We hastily moored up and R went off to find them where they had parked and bring them back.
It was marvellous to see them and have them on board again. The last time that they had seen MM was in our first season in 2011. We had a lovely lunch and a catch-up before they had to set off for the B&B that they had found for the night as their camper van was still in the garage. They are staying in the area for the G&S Festival in Harrogate and have another two shows to see.
After we had bid them farewell, we walked into Saltaire, without question the most impressive "model village" that this country has to offer.
Sir Titus Salt (yes, that really was his name! Poor fellow!) was the benefactor. He combined his name with the River Aire, that flows through the village, to create the village's name. His massive mills specialised in Angora wool from South America and the facilities and accomodation he provided for his workers are amazing in their scale.
In the centre of a vast park and sports complex, a statue, erected by local people to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of his birth, looks out, not across his empire but towards the bandstand. A disrespectful pigeon had pooped on his head. No comment!
As we returned to MM, two of the boats that had been next in line to go down the Bingley Five Rise behind us caught us up and moored either side of us. It was comforting to know that we have neighbours as there have been some instances of vandalism in this area.
Today: 3 miles, 11 locks and 3.3 hours.
Trip: 225 miles, 126 locks and 141.3 hours.
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