Narrowboat Adventures before Dementia
NB Fantasma

Having spent the last day of April ascending the 21 locks of The Wigan Flight we felt we deserved a day of rest today so spent it doing nothing, just relaxing and getting over yesterday's exertions - magic!!

The following Saturday niece Lisa volunteered (honestly she did volunteer, no pressure) to assist us through the Johnson Hillock Lock Flight. This flight of seven locks is like all others on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, for the foreseeable future, operating on restricted hours, in the case of the Johnson Hillock flight, the operation is from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm with the last boat entering before 3.00 pm. The night we spent on the moorings at the bottom of the flight three yoghurt pots (fibreglass cruisers) arrived around 7.00 pm, each was singlehanded. The three boats were lashed together with one towing the other two, then with two people operating the locks and the other operating the tow boat they set off through the locks. The CRT were not best pleased to find they had left all paddles open as they went. So much for conserving water.

We were hoping to moor above the Johnson Hillock Locks but every space was occupied and although the CRT said the pump-out (where the contents of toilet tanks were vacuum pumped out) was not working so we could moor there if we wanted to, we decided to give that a body swerve and carried on to a small village called Withnell Fold. The village had two visitor moorings on a small pontoon and both were occupied. We stopped in front of the visitor moorings and were trying to set mooring pins when the occupants of one of the boats on the mooring pontoon came up to us, explained they were only mooring for lunch and suggested we moor alongside them until they were finished then we could take their mooring - what a kind gesture and a great mooring.

 From Withnell Fold Visitor  Moorings we continued to head northeast, and of the next major town on our route, Blackburn, we had been told to be very wary. Everyone we spoke to implored us never to stop in Blackburn but to go from the southeast of the town to the northwest in one unstopping cruise. We cannot see why this should be. The Southwest part of the town was very pleasant, with large detached properties, and open spaces. We chatted to the volylockies (voluntary lock-keepers) who said that the moorings by the Asda Supermarket were safe. We stopped and went shopping in Asda where there was another boat on the moorings and whom we spoke to some days later. He said he had spent a few very pleasant days there.

Our stop at Asda turned into a bit of a disaster as before going shopping I had a tiddle, washed my hands and, horror of horrors, left the tap half on. We discovered this on our return and although the water tank was not empty it was seriously low and of course, we had just passed a water point (and with a virtually full tank we didn’t bother to stop), the next water point was what we had planned to be a week or more journey away.

That evening we stopped in Rishton on the pontoon-style visitor moorings for two nights and on Thursday 11th planned to cruise a long(ish) day to get to the next water point.

You may ask why not just turn round and go back to the previous point, but you can’t turn a 52-foot-long boat in a 30-foot wide canal so by the time you get to a winding hole, turn around, go back, fill the water tank, go down six locks, turn around again at the first available winding hole, back up the six locks etc., etc., you might as well carry on.

By chance, we were moored outside the Canal Side Cafe and during a conversation with the owner he said he had a water tap that we could use to fill the tank, we thanked him and said we would take up his offer while we had breakfast in his cafe the next morning. We got underway around 11.30 am with a full water tank and full bellies from a fabulous breakfast.

We no longer needed a water point so we looked for a pleasant mooring for a few days and where Lisa could safely leave her car on Sunday. We found it near the village of Clayton le Moors, with pleasant views and no other boats - magic.

As with Blackburn, we had been told not to stop in Burley, the local kids would pull out your pins, throw rocks at your boat, etc., but we were recommended to stop at Finsley Gate Wharf by the narrow boaters’ grapevine and were not disappointed. The ex-CRT Yard with its grade 2 listed buildings were converted to a restaurant/pub with three or four moorings The moorings were good with mooring bollards. We had a drink in the pub when we arrived and were impressed with the friendly and helpful staff, we also found the locals in the welcoming outdoor space friendly and eager to tell us about their town and about their most famous resident Fred Dibnah. The food being served to customers looked good and we had intended to eat in the pub restaurant on Monday evening but like many, the pub and restaurant was closed Mondays. Next time we come this way, we will ensure our visit is on days the restaurant is open. A Tesco Extra, launderette, etc., are all within walking distance. We had a small problem, we took a cab back to where Lisa had left her car. As the cab slowed to a stop behind it, Lisa cried in disbelief. She had left her car keys on the boat. The taxi took us back to the boat to collect the keys and then back to the car. Good job it was not a huge distance.

We spent Monday (15th) at the launderette getting the huge pile of washing cleaned and back in the wardrobe and other cupboards before moving on Tuesday when we intended to moor on the visitor moorings at the top of the Barrowford Lock flight. We got as far as the Morrison store in Nelson. It has direct access, via a locked gate, to the large Morrison store and we were able to get sufficient goodies to last a couple of weeks. After all the trudging around the store for a couple of hours we really didn’t have the energy to continue so stayed on the supermarket mooring overnight and next morning took the opportunity to have a full English breakfast in the store restaurant before continuing the cruise to the Barrowford visitor moorings. We planned to spend some days here as we wanted to visit Boundary Mills Shopping Outlet to get a new rug for the boat saloon. Boundary Mills is an upmarket shopping outlet that we visited often when we lived in Lancashire.

We spent six days on these great moorings, we got our new rug, which a kind lady on the permanent moorings opposite offered to collect for us and deliver to our boat but we collected it ourselves, got a lift from niece Lisa to the bottom of the locks and carried it the last 1/2 mile to the boat.

On the last days of this month, we travelled very short distances a total of 11 miles in 4 travelling days in order to be in convenient places to enable niece Lisa to visit each weekend while we were close to her home.

We spent the last three days of the month in our target town for the summer - Skipton, a must for anyone visiting Yorkshire. Among its many attractions is an outdoor market which operates every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday We were rather disappointed that there were just two food stalls, a superb cheese stall and an excellent fruit and veg. stall, operated by the father (cheese) and son (fruit and veg).