The Great Adventure day 8, Thursday 16th April, Journey's End

Set off about 9 from the double arch bridge (number 161) and had a nice drift to Greenberfield locks. We are still going upwards in the locks. The wind was even stronger today and I had a lot of trouble keeping to the middle between the locks. When the locks are close enough I have learnt to stay within the exit gate area out of the wind until Jon gets the next gate open, then a quick powerful dash into the next lock. It works great until there is someone coming out of the next lock or waiting to go in the one I’m exiting. We drifted on and passed the Anchor pub at Salterforth. I really recommend this one. We have been here several times by car and it has a great local atmosphere especially on a Sunday lunchtime and the food is good. There is a lovely log fire burning in winter too. Unfortunately it was mid morning so we didn’t stop but I am really looking forward to coming back this way soon. I made a note of the time so I can see how long it will take us from Reedley and whether we can do it on a short weekend.
We got to the Foulridge Tunnel and pulled to the side to wait for the lights, someone had just come through and said there was a lot of debris at the other end, so he was clearing his propeller. Just as we had tied up the lights turned green so we leapt on again and set off through the tunnel.

green light for the tunnel

Honestly the tiny, tiny white speck is the other end

This is a long straight tunnel 1640 yards long and you can just see the pinprick of light at the far end as you go in. Before they put in the traffic lights you had to wait for a while peering intently down the tunnel to see if there was anyone coming through since it is only wide enough for one boat. The traffic lights make it slightly less adventurous. Still it is very atmospheric and the rivulets of water run across your face like icy fingers from out of the dark. Last time (25 years ago) we turned all the lights off for a few seconds and it was really creepy. This time we all stayed up top at the back and enjoyed the experience.

Stalactites on the side wall.

The air shafts are quite wide and I recommend that you do not look up as there is quite a lot of water pouring down them, I learnt to put my hood up when passing below them. They are covered in grills and there is a footpath over the hill to them. I wonder how many people make the effort to go and look at them. We have cycled this towpath several times in the last few years but never realised that you could get to the airshafts. Next time we will go and have a look and see if we can see any boats passing below. It takes a good 30 to 40 minutes to get through the tunnel and you emerge blinking into the light.

This is the highest part of the canal around here and the next locks at Barrowford are now downwards (coming from Skipton direction of course). There are seven locks close to each other at Barrowford so it was back to the sytstem of hovering within the gate area. At one of them I had to try to hold in the pound. A strong wind was blowing me to the non towpath side and there was also a strong current flowing down the overflow by the side of the lock and taking me towards it. Mum and I panicked a bit but I decided it was best to go into the trees and hold on rather than onto the overflow. Eventually I got off the shallows and made a dash into the lock with no harm done. This canal boating is not as much fun as it should be when there are strong winds, but we were into the home run and wanted to press on.
The last run from Barrowford to Burnley is lockless and with no swing bridges so a delight usually. We were doing great and only a few bridges from home when we got a rather loud scrape and bang as we were going under a bridge. We had run over something probably a supermarket trolley no doubt. A few seconds later Jon realised he had no steerage, Luckily I had spent some time looking at the notes on running the boat that Nigel used to give to the hirers (and had left us a copy) The page headed ‘help I have no steering’ explained with nice hand drawn pictures that the rudder had jumped out of its ‘cup’ and that we could put it back by lifting the tiller and wiggling it. Meanwhile we had drifted into the shallows. We were so close to home it was really annoying. Much lifting and wiggling later and still it wasn’t fixed. Even with two of us it was too heavy to lift and manouvre properly.
A sudden flash of inspiration came to me and I rushed off to get the ‘hand spike’- that lovely short, strong piece of wood used to open the paddles on the Calder and Hebble locks. I had since been using it to fend us off almost everything from lock sides to bridges. We put it under the tiller cuff and lifted and behold the tiller dropped straight back into its rightful place. Phew!!. We punted off the shallows and set off in relief for Reedley Marina just around a couple of corners.

first view of Reedley Marina from the canal.

Under the eye of everyone Jon tried his best to manouvre in gracefully and back us into the berth. However the strong wind straight across the marina put paid to that and in the end we pushed and shoved very inelegantly and got in front first. At least we didn’t hit anyone. I decided that I prefer front-in since that means that from the lounge we are looking at the canal and countryside and not the boats at the other side of the marina.

Tormentil berthed with Jon and Irene (ali's Mum) looking pleased.

We were all exhausted and because it was grey and drizzly we decide to save the champagne until Saturday when we hope to celebrate our arrival with some family and friends.
My lovely cousin Kathy again came and drove Jon all the way back to Sowerby Bridge (only 40 minutes by road) to get the car and we had a late dinner on board.

12.5 miles and 10 locks today
According to canal planner the whole journey was 96 miles and 84 locks.