Why did we decide to move today of all days?

Thursday, 17 September 2009 08:53

Mirfield to South Pennine Boat Club

We moved because we needed to! Braving the very blustery wind and driving rain, we left Mirfield moorings; at least we did not have too far to go "today".

Mirfield Marina

We approached Ledgard Flood Lock; the far gates were closed

So began a bit of an "adventure"! First I got off to see if I could open the gates but quickly realised that I had no hope of opening them. I could see the huge weir immediately after the flood lock and the river was running pretty fast, but still just on "amber". Now it was John's turn, as I looked after Epiphany, tied to a bollard as we waited. (Epiphany, not me!)

Waiting at the gates

John needed to open both paddles - they are "spike" operated as neither gate would budge, even with his strength. Eventually the two of us managed to get them open with an enormous effort and lots of huffing and puffing on my part! Fortunately they could be chained open as they had a propensity to close again!

We took Epiphany through onto the River Calder, moored at the landing immediately past the gates and John closed them behind us - much easier to close! The water level marker was still just on amber but we could feel the flow of the river as we punched into the tide, and boy, was it blowing!

We were soon approaching Battyeford Lock. We could see it was a tight left turn into the lock from the river. There was a working boat moored at the end of the lock landing. This would have made things very difficult because of the current and wind, if we had had to stop on the lock landing.

However, we saw a very kind man opening the lock gates for us. We were expected, as we had rung ahead to tell South Pennine Boat Club that we had left Mirfield. The kind man was John, their Treasurer, who had been asked to meet us by Mike, the Moorings Officer.

John worked the lock and my John joined him as we rose

Note the warning sign on the right showing an example of the water level marker. The marker situated below the lock was on red! No wonder John had had to use lots of Epiphany's more than adequate horses to turn us into the lock, whilst the river carried on blithely to a weir about a half of a mile downstream.

Looking back to the River

South Pennine Boat Club was just ahead of the lock, on the right

We have a mooring spot outside Nb Tom -another Cornish boater!

SPBC have quite a number of boats moored and a dry dock. We were welcomed by John, hooked up and settled down.

A selection of photos of SPBC (more here):

Dry dock

Marina and Club house

P.S. Not sure what your weather is today, where you are - I wrote this on 3rd September (yes, we have been advance blogging for the last few days).  Epiphany has been moored here for a bit. We had things to do and places to go! We're about to catch up with our own blog!

Calder and Hebble Navigation, Mirfield to South Pennine Boat Club - 1 hour 17 minutes, 1.09 miles, 2 locks