Random Writings

I had quite a productive morning this morning, despite interruptions. At about 10-ish, the boat was suddenly filled with a strange gurgling-bubbling sound. I looked outside and the navigation seemed to be bubbling enthusiastically. Most odd. I went back to the computer. Shortly afterwards, Innocenti lurched on the moorings and there was the sound of an engine. I went outside to see the oil barge “Humber Pride” passing, and went on to watch them manoeuvre through Castleford Flood Lock, which is actually more like a small basin as the two sets of gates aren’t in a straight line! The barge only just fits, and they had to close the lock gates at my end to give his prop something to work against! Apparently the bubbling is methane released from old mining landfills when the canal is disturbed.

I’d not long gone back to work when another very large barge, laden down with gravel, passed by. This one was “Heather Rose” and goes regularly to the Lafarge aggregates terminal near Wakefield.
After that I got chatting to the man on the widebeam next door and then it was lunchtime. Anyway, I had written a thousand words and tidied the thesis up a bit!

This afternoon’s cruise was straightforward enough – down the lock at Bulholme (there was a lock-keeper on duty for the commercial traffic) and out into the River Aire again, past several reclaimed former collieries and the big power station at Ferrybridge. This is Power Station Country from here all the way to Nottingham, because of the coalfields and big rivers. At Ferrybridge itself the navigation becomes a canal again, the former Knottingley and Goole canal, which takes craft away from the winding lower reaches of the Aire and the scary tidal section of the Yorkshire Ouse. This canal is entirely responsible for the creation of Goole as a town and port – there was virtually nothing there before!

Just outside Knottingley is Kellingley Colliery, the only working coal mine I’ve seen on the whole trip, despite having passed dozens of worked-out and re-landscaped ones. It sends its coal by rail now, to the nearby power stations at Eggborough and Drax. The countryside opens out here, and the navigation briefly runs on a slight embankment, affording me a view of traffic on the parallel stretch of the M62 going at twenty times my speed! I’ve moored at Whitley Bridge for the night, which is on the edge of Eggborough village and is next to perhaps one of the least useful railway stations in the country. Whitley Bridge station has a train to Leeds (via Knottingley, Pontefract and Castleford) at 0730, but don’t miss it as the next one isn’t until 1912! There is a train back from Leeds, just the one, leaving Leeds just after 5pm and returning to Whitley Bridge at 6. The other end of the line is Goole, but woe betide you if you want to travel there from Whitley Bridge – you can only take the 6pm train and can’t come back until the following morning… honestly, why even bother to keep the station open? Apparently just 950 people used the station last year!

After I moored (literally within minutes of having tied the ropes and placed the fenders) I was passed by the now-empty “Heather Rose” on her way back. It’s noticeable in the pictures how much more freeboard she was when she’s empty!

Today is the sixtieth cruising day, which has included my six hundredth mile, and yesterday featured my five hundredth lock… hasn’t it been a long trip? I’ve just worked out (thanks to tide info from the lock-keeper at Keadby) that I should be in Leicester a week tomorrow (Sat 11th) and perhaps back in Cambridge during the first week of October, assuming all goes well. The thesis is nearly there now and I’ll send it out for comments early next week.

Day 60: Castleford to Whitley Bridge, 10 miles and 2 locks.
Total so far: 602 miles and 504 locks. Thesis 17457 words and 91 pages.

This morning I had a very productive thesis-hacking session, in which I chopped and changed various chapters and paragraphs to improve the overall flow. After lunch I headed back down the Aire & Calder navigation towards Castleford. The three locks were simple enough, although Lemonroyd Lock is extremely deep (4m!) and so climbing down the ladder to the boat felt like a very long way. I did briefly pull into Lemonroyd Marina in the hope of gas and diesel, but there were none. Oh well.

At Castleford I moored up next to an oil terminal (nicer than it sounds, actually, this mooring) and adjacent to a small motor-cruiser I’d seen in Leeds at the weekend. The two lads on it were barbecuing merrily – chatting to them, they said they’d come from Ripon. After I’d had my dinner I went for a wander and found Castleford to be a rather unremarkable and slightly depressing little town – with a high density of pawnbrokers and a Heron Foods (like Iceland only even cheaper…)

Someone had made an effort to give the place some sense of history with a selection of signboards pointing out the location of the original Roman fort (now a Wilkinson’s car park) and its bath-house (excavated in 1979 and then covered over again with a turfed area to protect it). Over the river Aire itself they’ve erected a smart new footbridge that stands right in the weir-stream, giving a spectacular view of the rushing water below. Just adjacent to the wier is the mill, a big old building which still grinds its flour using stone millstones. This is where Allinsons (wi’ nowt taken out!) flour comes from, although the mill’s now part of the much bigger ADM Milling group.
Apparently Castleford does still have plenty of industry – despite the big chemical works and the collieries now being history – Burberry’s factory is here and there’s also a Nestle chocolate factory that produces an appetising toasted-biscuit smell that I remember fondly from when I lived in York.

On my return, the lads in the motorcruiser told me that they’d found Castleford very dull after the bright lights of Leeds and were off downriver to try Ferrybridge instead. Apparently the pub they’d been in had been very customer-hostile! I hope they found something better, as unlikely as it seems!

Day 59: 8 miles and 4 locks (it turns out that Canalplan counts flood locks, despite the fact that I’ve yet to actually need to operate one)
Total so far: 592 miles and 502 locks. Thesis 16401 words and 85 pages.

Leeds is the most northerly point on my cruise, so from now on I’m heading homeward! This afternoon I’ve cruised a short distance down the Aire to Knostrop to avoid flexing the definition of “48 hours” too far. I came out of Clarence Dock and turned upstream before winding under Crown Point Bridge (note to navigators, it’s surprisingly shallow in the area around the large storm drain) and going back to Leeds Lock rather than making the oblique angle turn required. Once I’d set the lock, a crewman appeared from the Leeds City Cruises boat “The Black Prince” – he had a boatload of Councillors going to Knostrop to open a nature reserve, they’d shown up late but still wanted to be there on time, could he go first? I let him, of course, and he kindly agreed to lock me through at Knostrop when I arrived, as the Councillors would be being worthy and cutting ribbons on some new nature reserve project. This he duly did, and I’m now moored just below the lock on a handy piece of wharf.

Day 58: Leeds (Clarence Dock) to Knostrop Fall Lock, 1 mile and 2 locks.
Total so far 584 miles and 498 locks. Thesis 16116 words and 84 pages.

I have further broadened my marine engineering skills over the last few days – as I mentioned before, Innocenti’s alternator has packed up and Tuesday morning’s task (after writing 600 words of thesis between being awake and coherent and the shops opening) was to try and get it repaired. This is where the internet and 3G mobiles come in really handy. A quick search revealed that a big auto-electrical firm, Sewell of Leeds was a ten minute walk around the corner, so having removed the alternator from the engine the night before (fiddly, but without dropping any Vital Bits into the Oily Black Void of the bottom of the engine bay), I double-wrapped it in plastic bags and took it round there in my rucksack. The chap kindly tested it and pronounced it knackered – it needed a new voltage regulator and new brushes as a minimum. They offered to fix it, but the parts would take a day or two to get. At this point I thanked him kindly and rang the next firm I’d found during my earlier research, Auto Generators, who said that they could fix it the same day. They’re in Wakefield, but close to the railway station and so the alternator and I took a train ride on a smart London-bound express and got off after twenty minutes. I found the place and stepped into a room entirely full of alternators and starter motors in various states of disrepair. The Helpful Chap took one look at the unit and said – ”
that’ll need new slip rings as well as the oil’s got to them, I can do it, but it’ll be £65″. However, he offered me a reconditioned unit for £95. This sounded like a good deal to me, but upon a rummage in the stockroom he didn’t have a suitable recon unit. He did, however, have a new one. After a confab with his boss he agreed to sell me the brand new one for £100. This seemed an excellent price given that the likes of Adverc charge about double that for a new unit – mind you, he was taking the old one in part-exchange.
I took the shiny new alternator down the road and was stopped in my tracks by a cafe with a sign saying “Coffee and bacon butty £2.50”. The cafe (Bean for Coffee) was a smart little place and had newspapers and free wifi, making it an abject bargain. Back at the station I saw a steam train – the Scarborough Spa Express, which runs regularly all through the summer and turns out to be priced at a very reasonable £19 for second class or £29 for first (I’ll keep that in mind for a fun day out in the future). My morning had gone well!
Then the train to Leeds was delayed by 20 minutes, and when I got back to the boat I fitted the new alternator with more than a little fiddling and faffing, only to find that there was no charge warning light with the ignition on, and no output when the engine ran. Connecting up the external charge regulator (Innocenti came with an Adverc charge regulator) produced output from the alternator but the warning lights, voltages and current went bananas. Bother. I poked around and checked things and reluctantly concluded that the new alternator was probably faulty. By now it was 4.30 and I left it for the day as I had an evening engagement.

This morning I rang Adverc, where the helpful lady agreed with my diagnosis, and then Auto Generators who said “bring it in and we’ll sort it”, so I took another train ride to Wakefield. I was in the shop less than ten minutes – they span up the alternator on the test rig, confirmed the symptoms and then fiddled with it and gave it back. Apparently a screw was loose inside – my guess was that the connection between the voltage regulator and the field brushes was at fault – and I dragged the unit back to Leeds again. Having installed it this afternoon it all seems to work fine, so fingers crossed for no more problems!

Tonight I’m moving off the Clarence Dock public moorings (once my laundry’s done) and will then be moving out to Knostrop for the night before continuing to Castleford tomorrow.