Off the "beaten" Line

Wednesday, 10 June 2009 17:02

We said goodbye to Tewitfield this morning, thus vacating a visitor mooring for someone else. Well, room for one boat anyway! The moorings there badly need dredging, so I hope that when the dredger arrives on the Lancaster Canal Tewitfield will not be forgotten!

The more visiting boats that make it to Tewitfield and catch the vision of opening The Northern Reaches the better! The Lancaster Canal Trust Needs YOU!

We have made a very short journey and are now moored in the Capernwray Arm, about a quarter of a mile from Hodgsons bridge 134. We are here on the BW Ranger Andy's recommendation. He told us about the birds here and that it is very quiet.

There were two boats when we arrived, now there are three! Leaders as ever! It is lovely - sadly there is a very bad internet connection so I am not sure if I will be able to put up photos, but I will try!

After we moored I washed down Epiphany and John did some preparation for painting the rust spots. A dog walker passed by and stopped to chat. He was full of knowledge and had lived by the canal since he was a child in Bilsborrow.

Bill - for that is his name - can remember working boats passing his childhood home and the old buildings at Bilsborrow. He was telling us that the Capernwray Arm used to be the arm to Wegber Quarry. Working boats would arrive at the quarry with coal and leave loaded with stone.

The pool at the end, just beyond the moorings was where they winded and is known locally as "Pike Pool": in honour of the pike caught there by Bill among others!

I read in "The Complete Guide to the Lancaster Canal" that there used to be a narrow gauage railway that ran around the site. The quarry workers lived in cottages nearby in "New England" and there are remains of the loading cranes near the caravan site.

Maybe we need to have a wander if the rain clears! Bill told us that there are woodpeckers, buzzards, badgers, foxes, and peregrine falcons in the area.

There also used to be a picnic and BBQ site by the moorings but the landowner and BW fell out. It has now returned to the wild and I think it adds to the atmosphere, with the woods so close by!

Another nugget of information Bill passed on was that the mooring pontoons in front of us cost £27,000 to put in. Now I have no means of knowing whether all his facts are correct but I suggested he should write his "memoirs"!

Finally to make you (and I know some of you do!) salivate, the boat is full of the smell of fresh bread and coffee cake, both made by my fair hand! Now does that mean visitors?! Find us if you can!

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