The Great Adventure day 6, Tuesday 14th April. The famous Bingley five rise.

The famous five rise. (me mum and Fran are walking up on the left to see what is going on)

Despite my worries we had a quiet night with no disturbances. We managed to get off at 9 and met up with Fran and Mike who amazingly are also berthed at Reedley Marina in Burnley (where we were heading), unfortunately I can’t remember the name of their boat, but it has a lovely picture of a wildcat on the side. It was great to be with them as we had to tackle the Bingley three and five rise staircase locks today. I was looking forward to this as the last time we were on a narrowboat we went as far as Bingley but didn’t do the locks.

parked up waiting to go through.

large boats look small coming out of the locks

both boats in the first lock

The lockkeeper looking very relaxed.

We worked well at the three and five rise, Fran and I worked one side whilst the lockkeeper did the other. We needed both of us as some of the lower paddles were extremely difficult to turn, I am sure I wouldn’t have managed them on my own. It took us about 2 hours for 10 locks which was pretty good going. Mum stayed on board through the locks (she had said she didn’t fancy being on board as it would be scary) and she thoroughly enjoyed it sat at the back chatting with Jon and Mike. On we went with endless swing bridges. Fran did most of them as she was walking but several were very hard and Jon had trouble with several that he did. We stopped at Silsden as we had arranged to meet up with some friends, Joan and Ken and Fran and Mike carried on. Joan and Ken had wanted to see the Bingley locks but we got there too early for them. We stopped for tea and cakes on board (thankyou Joan) and they came on with us for about a mile for the fun of it and then walked back to their car.

Wildlife, a gaggle of geese and a black swan.

The Leeds and Liverpool looking picturesque

We eventually stopped at 6.45 at Bradley near the swing bridge (of course). We had a super meal in the Slater’s Arms (up a bit of a hill but well worth it-sorry can’t find a web link) and Bradley is a nice village.
Home by 9.30 and an early night.
11 locks 12.5 miles and 21 swing bridges!!!