Halfway along the Leeds and Liverpool

We delayed the start to our Wednesday cruising to try and pick the best part of the day to knock over the Hillock Locks, a seven lock flight. It has rained more than it has been fine and we haven't perfected 'picking' the weather quite yet. When we heard a boat chug past that was the time to go, two boats to halve the lock work!  This time we picked well and missed the rain, arriving at the Services after the top lock around 11:00 in bright sunshine. We tied up and filled with water before heading off again, we had no mooring planned, just stopping when we liked the mooring. We are nearing the highest point of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the countryside is opening out.

Across the aqueduct near Fenniscowles

A couple of hours and we were cruising into Blackburn, a town with a population of 100,000 or so. There was a steep increase in the rubbish floating in the canal, plastic bags, plastic bottles, wood, shopping trolleys, it was all there in there and there was no dodging it. I could hear Serafina starting to labour with the build up of rubbish , I reversed the propeller several times trying to spin the rubbish off.

Cruising through Blackburn

Halfway point of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal

Six more locks completed, as usual the rain started at the bottom lock, But we finished them in sunshine. No particularly desirable moorings in Blackburn so we were off further along the canal for another hour pulling up at Rishton Moorings near 5pm, a long day of cruising.

Once tied up I took a stroll into town to pick up a few things while Rachael started to put dinner together. She had just finished telling me that we needed to have a big shop, things were getting a little low. There were two boats on the mooring, which made them full, not a lot of room! There was a lot of drilling, banging and grunting going on so I thought I would take a look. Everybody was having the same problems, our neighbour had a pile of rubbish he had removed from his propeller and was still going.

We left in bright sunshine on Thursday, not far behind our neighbour. Plenty of country-side cruising today and swing bridges.

Just for a change of pace we stopped for lunch at some empty moorings across from Hapton Boatyard. I can imagine it would be pretty noisy in the mornings, it was all industrial buildings along this stretch of the canal. While the weather held up, in fact it was bright and sunny, we continued cruising. We passed through Garnow Tunnel and into Burnley, another large town and once again the rubbish level in the canal increased significantly. The canal continued well above Burnley and the two boats that we had followed since Rishton called it quits for the day. I set sight for Reedley Marina, just out of town for a chance to fill with diesel and make a deposit from our holding tank. We arrived a 3:45 and were just in time to catch the manager who was going to head off early. He ended up getting away half an hour late!

We visited Reedley Marina four years ago when we hired a narrowboat, our first time. I called it a day here and moored across the road from the marina, a rural setting. It was time to get down into the weed hatch and clean up the propeller and shaft, I ended up with half a bag of plastic shopping bags.

The first narrowboat I got my hands on is now a day boat

Reedley Marina across from our mooring

Having hired a boat and cruised this part of the canal we knew there was a mooring half an hour down the canal right by a Morrison's Supermarket. We cruised off early this morning before breakfast, Serafina moving and sounding much better, free from all that rubbish around the prop. Half an hour later we were tied up next to Morrison's having breakfast. An hour of shopping and we were off again, arriving twenty minutes later at the bottom lock of the Barrowford Flight. On queue the rain began. This is the view of the third lock in the flight, the old bridge in the foreground, a modern motorway bridge behind.

Passed by this reservoir beside the locks, I suspect it supplies water for the lock flight. Still raining!

Snapped a picture of the flight from the top, the rain stopped on queue. We were pretty wet so we are moored at the Barrowford Moorings and have now had hot showers, ready for the forecast rain tomorrow!

Looking back from Lock 45, Barrowford Locks