Goodbye Rochdale hello Calder & Hebble

1 October - Sowerby Bridge, Rochdale to the Colliers Arms, Elland lock 

Up and about bright and early and waiting for the lock keeper to let us down the big lock ( 19 ft 8 deep, 690,000 gallons of water - the deepest on the system). This takes you into Tuel tunnel and on to another lock. This has to be booked you can't just rock up and expect to be looked after.

Lock No.1 this marks the end of the Rochdale canal and the start of the Calder and Hebble with its wooden lock handles for the strangest paddles in the system so far and its very short locks, wide but short. 

Finally the last of the Rochdale, been interesting and a challenge

Once down we go to the boatyard and got a pump out, a gas bottle and diesel, Janet got gas and we both filled water and off we went.

Boat yard where we meet Quantrelle for the second time

The spike to be used on Calder and then Mike jumped down to help push Albert out.

Albert had problems at the very first one, at 57 feet he can only fit in on an angle and once down the gates are very tricky to open and no room to share locks so the work load doubles. In the 2nd one there was a guy on a small boat solo so I went with him on Grumble and helped and set for those behind.

Letting Pete out at the Guillotine Lock is the last I see of Pete for a while as he moved on with the small boat, wasn't the best of ideas as 2 x 57 foot boats just do not fit into Calder locks. No where in the Nicholson books could we find any mention of this.

Vicki and Janet on Albert and a boat called Quantrelle, (one of Jim's from Oakwood Narrow Boats) owned by Mike and Aileen. Both boats had problems with length and had to remove fenders front and rear, 

The only lock that Quantrelle and Albert fitted into was guillotine lock

Janet & I cruised on with Quaintrelle, a lovely couple that now live aboard. Unfortunately boats didn't fit into locks together, we did try and had to fill one lock very quickly again to let one of the boats out. We finally caught up with Pete at Elland Lock

Our mooring for the night

We stopped for the night at the Colliers Arms, a pub, no music, no TV, no food, no cocktails, just beer, wine and spirits that's it. An extremely hard day - we had set a plan on where we hoped to get to and that is not a good idea, boat time shouldn't be rushed you get to where you get to.

TOTAL - 5 miles, 9 locks but due to having to double handle them we actually did 16, 1 small aqueduct and 1 tunnel