PeterCr

Looking forward to it even more now! And if the weather is like today, wonderful. The town was jumping with people out enjoying the sunshine. We're right in the middle of the action, got a mooring directly across from Pennine Cruisers on the arm. We've been warned that from about 5 am tomorrow morning we'll have stalls setting up next to the boat. Should be fun.

Absolutely loving Skipton. Decided to stay a bit longer and see the sheep festival here tomorrow. No idea what that's about.

I'll keep an eye out for you. Yes I noticed all those swing bridges, did 6 today. More to come.

Absolutely enjoying the L&L. Past Gargrave now and it's wonderful. Each evening moored up with stunning views. Quiet and enjoyable. Especially when you get an evening like yesterday, moored up by 2 and 3 or 4 hours sitting on the towpath taking it all in.

We found an Aldi at Coates Bridge which was good. About 100 metres from the canal, decent mooring at the bridge. So we got provisioned up and even found something we'd been looking for for a while luckily. Every now and then you strike it lucky at Aldi.

Disappointed to see that the offside mooring for Morrisons are a no go any more. The mooring is fine but either end is a big fence and although there are steps up to the supermarket they are now closed off with an imposing locked gate. Shame to get so close and not be able to make it to the supermarket. We tried mooring on the towpath but in 3 attempts couldn't get the boat any closer than about 2 feet from the bank.

Lovely quiet night, no problems at all. Good mooring.

Exactly what we said when we saw it. Might have made room for us.

Well it will be interesting. We missed Rose Grove as there was a wide beam and narrowboat moored up one end and a couple of CRT working boats the other end. The only mooring left was on the water point so we moved up to the mooring at Burnley Wharf, right under the roof. We're one of 5 boats. Had a chat to a couple of local boat owners, one was moored here for an hour or 2 though he lives just down near Rose Grove. He said there's been instances lately of kids throwing rocks at boats at Rose Grove from the towpath side. He's lived there 30 years. Apparently, he also said, a local boat had oil poured all over it's roof lately though I didn't ask where, and a boat owner had a brick dropped on her off a bridge, he was there at the time, saw it and went to help. Spoke to a guy who opens and closes the old weavers house and toll house museum, he's up and down here every day and has worked here for a year and he says he hasn't heard of any boat related problems here lately. He said the coppers patrol up and down here regularly, we saw a couple. We we'll be glad to get away tomorrow though. On the plus side the weavers house and toll house were worth a visit, we're in the shade on a hot day and I got my boots! And just as I typed this my wife tells me it's raining!. But not on us!

Agreed, perhaps not quite as narrow or as long as some but you've really got to keep your wits about you with all the kinks to navigate.

Apologies, you're quite right, the locks are at Barrowford. We had just been advised not to moor in Burnley (lockie on the Wigan flight) and so looking at the map we thought we'd head right out of the built up area, past Burnley and Barrowford up to around bridge 144, and it appeared we needed to do the locks to get to the countryside up there. So I just lumped them all in as going through Burnley. But it looked like a long day. However it looks like we've got a couple of options thanks Opener and Canal321. Rose Grove looks good. The things to do include going to Screwfix to buy a new pair of boots. Mine are pretty much falling apart and I've looked elsewhere and not found anything. There's a screwfix that sell boots right near the canal at 130A - 130B. Perfect. And they're open Sundays. Good to get some informed advice never having been there ourselves, thanks.

Hi all, we're currently south of Burnley and would like to stop there for a couple of things. It looks like a long day getting through Burnley, as there are a few locks to do as well. Not sure we can do our jobs there and get through all in one day. It would be Saturday or Sunday. Can anyone recommend a good safe overnight mooring in Burnley? Nicholsons suggests just north of bridge 130h near the water park but does anyone have any local knowledge of moorings there? Or is there somewhere better? Cheers.

We're starting up the Wigan flight tomorrow on the Leeds and Liverpool. We've got a stack of books that we've read ready to swap. Does anyone know of somewhere along the way where we might find a book swap? Cheers

Thanks for that excellent tip Pagefield. We were planning on overnighting half way up but I joined the group and the advice is that doing so isn't advised, apparently the local kids aren't friendly around there. Invaluable advice from a local on the facebook page. Cheers

Yes that's why I thought it might not be so safe and secure, if anyone had bad things in mind they could just jump over the gate. We stayed on the secure moorings in Leicester last year. Now that's what I call secure. However if it's not an area where there are people with bad things in mind it's not an issue. We generally prefer to moor out of built up areas that we don't know unless we need to like this. We know there are some areas where we need to be careful, we just don't know which ones they are.

Sounds like all should be fine then, thanks for the tip on the factory pearley.

These being the pontoons near the water point? I did look at them as we went past the other way and thought they didn't look a whole lot more secure than just using the rings. But if it's not an area known for being risky I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm just a little more security conscious at the moment after a CRT guy from Wigan warned us about kids throwing stones at boats (not in Wigan).

We're taking our chances and going north in a few days, currently heading out of Liverpool. We need to tackle the Wigan flight soon. Coming from our direction there are a few locks before getting to the junction. As it's an early morning start to go up the flight we'd rather not tackle all those locks before we even start the flight. There's moorings with rings below the last lock before the junction, I'm just wondering how safe they are. Is it ok to moor there overnight or if not where is better? Thanks

The green one is a clothes line prop. We have 3 of these and we use them to hang out clothes to dry in the boat. Because they expand and can be locked you can put them right on top of the windows either side to hang the clothes on.

How did you contact them? I've had no luck, not even had a reply to an email asking them the best way to contact them. We saw some interesting night time boaters last year. 3 hire boats, all together, each with about 20 Irish students (and I hope some supervisor) on board, at around midnight, trying to navigate with someone sitting on the bow with the torch from a mobile phone. We were very glad when they got past us!

We do exactly what you've suggested, we're from Australia. So we do summer in Australia then summer in the UK, in fact I've just got back on the boat now to dewinterise it for the season. So we put the boat on hardstanding for the winter as do a few other Aussies and NZ's here, seems to work fine, has to be properly winterised though. One of the advantages of being on hardstanding is that for the time it's on land you don't need to pay licence fees, and it's a little cheaper as well, though you've got fees for lifting out and in etc. But it works for us, at least it has so far. 6 months is a good amount of time and you can do 6 months on a tourist visa. In our case we wouldn't want to be on the boat in winter anyway.

That's what I found strange, after reading the policy itself there wasn't a word about single handing. I wonder how much force the "summary" has if something appears in the summary but not in the policy. I've been reading this which discusses the single handing a little. I'm beginning to think that the single handing restriction is 24 hours all in one go, ie 24 hours uninterupted. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?230059-CraftInsure-did-I-really-expect-them-to-do-what-they-promised However this is a bit discouraging. I've rung them on their customer contact number about half a dozen times this morning. All I can get is a beeping sound. Perhaps it's an engaged noise but it seems unlikely they'd be engaged for the whole morning. I tried their claims number too, same. Very hard to get in contact with anyone.

Perhaps that's it and it is in a salt water policy, but not in narrowboat policies. I might give them a ring tomorrow just to clarify it a bit more.

Yes it's not in the policy document but it is in the summary they sent out to me.

I have just had my craftinsure renewal. On the plus side the premium has gone down a bit. Unusual for insurance. However I thought I'd have a browse through the insurance summary for a little light reading. But I was surprised to see under "Are there any restrictions on cover?", - "single handed use for a period of over 24 hours." So I went to take a look at the policy and cannot see any reference to single handing. As I'll certainly be single handed for over 24 hours I thought I should see if anyone knows anything about this. Cheers