The Great Adventure 4, Sunday 12th April. MY BIRTHDAY!

CHAMPAGNE!!

Up early. I got a chocolate chick from Jon and two Easter eggs and two bottles of white wine (English, Denbies Surrey Gold-one of which I am now tryingwhilst blogging- very nice light and crisp) from Niel and Karen. Great! I love presents. (I already had my ‘proper’ present from Jon before we set off on the boat journey). Had scrambled egges and smoked salmon for breakfast but no champagne, we will have that later. This meant we set off lateish about 10.30, but all the locks on the Aire and Calder are electric so I forsaw a good day. The river was beautiful again, wide and slow and lots of swans. A lot more boats about today I guess because of the Easter weekend, mostly coming in the opposite direction to us which made locking a bit slow as we had to wait for them to come through. All very sociable though and I learnt a lot about locking.

We passed under the M1, I tried to get a picture of a lorry going over but always missed it. I got this unusual view of the underside of the M1 from the canal instead.


It certainly gives you a sense of superiority to think of all those poor people in their cars while we are enjoying the gentle cruise of the canal.

We saw a lovely boat fair at the Thwaite Mills Industrial Museum,(just south of Leeds) they had a great looking beer tent and lots of boats moored up and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Unfortunately we couldn’t moor up and join them, we had to get on.

We carried on and got to Leeds and moored up just before Clarence dock since we needed to fill up with water since I wasn’t sure how much we had left (the shower had been well worked the last few days). This was a small two or three boat mooring with a water tap and some toilet/shower facilities so we hooked up and started filling. The tap had been leaking and as I went to attach the hose I went flying and landed on my bum. Very wet and dirty that was, I was not a happy bunny. Jon and Neil went off to find provisions and Jon wanted some engine oil as he was worried about the levels.
A nice man and his family in arrived in a very small boat (four adults and one very small baby) I was intreagued at where they all managed to fit. The girls and baby went off to shower etc and I talked to the man. We had planned to move on from Leeds and try to find somewhere nice with a good restaurant for me to have a good birthday meal tonight. However the man said that the part between Leeds and Saltaire is not too good and the BW people ‘count you out of Leeds and count you into the locks’ about four hours away. They also leave these locks by about 5 so I calculated that we would have to move pretty sharp and not stop in Leeds to get through. Frantic phonecalls of the type ‘where ae you now’ to the lads and Neil tried to get Karen and I to use his sat nav to tell them where the nearest garage was. Typically all it told us was where the nearest museum was (and we knew that anyway), ‘Just ask’ was our reply but off course being men they couldn’t do that (loss of face or something I guess). They reappeared and after much complex discussion and mind changing I decided (it was my birthday after all) that we could afford to ignore the schedule and have the afternoon off. It turned out to be one of my better decisions.
By now we could hear the sound of interesting entertainment going on just behind the wall off the canal. We went to investigate and found the Royal Armouries Museum were demonstrating jousting. It was great fun although we could only see by looking through a gate as we couldn’t get in to the arena. I got some alright piccies though.

Men on horses, not in full armour sadly.

I later learnt that we could have had a good view from the Armouries Museum.

The jousting arena

We spent two great hours in the museum which I would recommend to anyone to visit.

The greeting staute (this turned out to be a real person who moved if you gave a donation to the museum.



the lighthouse-like stairwell at the Armouries Museum

Looking up the stairwell, the walls are covered with types of javelins, swords armour etc. Clever picture curtesy of Neil.



War elephant in full armour



Next to the museum is the Clarence Dock, and it is very nice, all newly done up with lots of moorings. Our British Waterways key fitted the gate to the moorings so we decided to move in and stay there the night. They had water and electricity on tap (well on a card which we didn’t have- but then we still don’t have a connector thingy to get the electricity either yet, still only batteries).



Tormentil safely in CLarence Dock.



Another view of Clarence Docks.

After the Armouries Museum we retired to the boat and finally got the champagne open (the real stuff too Lanson Black Label, my favourite, only happens every few years though more’s the shame). Luckily the champagne glasses seemed to have survived the great glass breakage of yesterday.
After a wander round in the evening we decided on Mumtaz for dinner. Unfortunately it was the only one that had any customers, the Clarence Dock was obviously a great idea when it opened but looks like the shops and restaurants are suffering from lack of custom despite the hundreds of lovely new appartments surrounding it. However Mumtaz was fantastic. It looks like some great marble temple, everything is swish and the service is great.

Mumtaz inside

Having fun, Jon and me on the left, Neil and Karen on the right.

The food is not bad either, curry with lots of variety. I see that Brenda from Mr David tried it too when they were in Leeds recently. It is well worth it and alcohol free so you don’t get the young, drunk element going in for the usual post binge curry. It was all very civilised and full of Indian families enjoying themselves. The tropical cocktail we had by the jugful was wonderful (mango, strawberries, orange and lots of ther stuff) although I should say I was rather glad we had already had some champagne so we were rather cheerful anyway.
Added to all this we had only to stagger 50 yds (we had eaten lots rather than drunk) to our beds and I was very happy with my birthday treat.

Fancy night picture of the locks, from Neil.

Only 6 miles and 5 locks today, but who cares.