Punting on the Aire

This morning I was thinking this is more like it, the sun was shining, virtually no wind and the water flow on the river looked a lot less so we started on our way to Wakefield. All went well at first, there was even a lockkeeper at Lemonroyd Lock so I didn't have to do any work. We did have to wait for a rather large boat to come up through the lock first.

After Lemonroyd we were on the river,cruising in the sunshine,watching the dragonflies and then we started slowing down. Not logical, we were heading downstream, something had fouled our prop,just as Ray slowed the engine it cut out! So there we were drifting downstream, with no power on a river which has big boats on it! The current took us in towards the bank! Our temperamental engine doesn't like starting when it is warm so even when the prop was clear we had to wait for the engine to cool before we could restart it. So we were punting a 45 foot narrowboat with butty down the shallows on the River Aire! Great fun!!

The current on the river was only running at about 1 mph so we drifted slowly on until we could restart, thankfully nothing came past us while we were drifting. Downstream to Castleford then a right turn upstream on the Calder, the current which had helped us now slowed us to less than 3 mph so it was a slow haul up to Fairies Hill and Woodnook lock which took us back onto canal rather than river. Last time were here we didn't see any big barges, this time we saw two, the oil tanker at Lemonroyd and a similar size gravel barge on the Calder just as we approached the railway bridge. not surprisingly we let him take the centre span of the bridge and we went through one of the side arches. When we got through the lock onto the canal I saw that the traffic light at the top of the lock was flashing red indicating that the river should not be navigated and we had just come up it!

We had an uneventful journey from Woodnook to Stanley Ferry, the only point of note was seeing Ngarpi, who we travelled with on the Rochdale two years ago.

We are now moored at Stanley Ferry, heading for Wakefield and a grocery shop tomorrow.

Today's journey 10.1 miles and 5 locks

So far this year we have travelled 428.1 miles, 269 locks, 42 swing bridges, 1 lift bridge and 11 tunnels



In 2011 we travelled 461.4 miles, 444 locks, 3 swing bridges, 34 lift bridges and 15 tunnels


During 2010 we travelled 740.3 miles, 642 locks, 53 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 25 tunnels


Since Ray retired we have travelled 1629.8 miles, 1355 locks, 99 swing bridges, 39 lift bridges and 51 tunnels