Leaving the Selby Canal

In the end we didn't leave Selby on Friday. Our friends Dave and Jan on Yesdear arrived so we stayed put!

Moored at West Haddeslesey Lock overnight

Spending a very pleasant evening on Friday on their boat.

Saturday started with thunderstorms, which Paul managed to sleep through. Once the rain stopped both us and Yesdear moved on together, with the added bonus of a boater coming the other way operating the swing bridge for us!

This time Dave and Jan came on our boat and more wine was consumed!

Just moored for the night at Knottingly when this went by!

On Sunday Yesdear moved off ahead of us as they are heading towards Goole so we are unlikely to meet up with them again for a while.

The picture above is the end of the Selby Canal. West Haddeslesey is a flood lock and when we went down a couple of weeks ago the gates were open, but following the rain over the weekend the gates had been closed. So today we have worked through 3 locks and are now back on the Aire and Calder. This navigation is part canal and part river. Found a nice mooring just in time! We are again back on water we have not previously travelled. Heading towards Dewsbury.

To Ripon and Return

We arrived safely in the centre of Ripon on Tuesday, well over a week ago now! The moorings are very near the centre. Paul's RAF buddy Dave and his wife Joyce came

Only a few of the geese at Naburn Lock.

to see us in the afternoon and we had an amble through the town. Dave had spent his early years there and gone to school. We did look for the school, but didn't find it!
The next day we went to see the Cathedral. Lovely building with lots of old artefacts. Dave and Joyce came back in the afternoon bringing more mail.

Selby swing bridge.

This time we took them for a short cruise, down through a couple of locks so they could see what it was all about! They had to walk back though! But we carried on.

We spent Thursday and Friday cruising back towards Naburn Lock, meeting up again with friends Dave and Jan on Yesdear. We were booked in at Naburn Lock to return to Selby at 4 to arrive on the turning tide.  So we had most of the day free.  We spent some time feeding the geese, there were so many of them and good to see so many grey lag geese instead of the usual Canada geese. We arrived at Selby on Saturday and are still here. It has been very hot as I am sure you well know! The plan is to move on tomorrow but some rain is forecast, so we will see.

Entrance to Selby Lock.

Stopping in York

The water of the Selby Canal was very clear but there was a lot of duck weed as you can see below. Thankfully this didn't cause us the same trouble as the blanket weed
on the Chesterfield Canal. However once we reached the basin it took us a while to

Much weed on the Selby Canal

moor as we had to clear the weed to get alongside. On Wednesday at about 5 pm we locked out on to the River Ouse. Traveling with the tide it only took us 3 hours to travel the 15 miles to Naburn! We spent 2 nights there as Paul needed to do some work on the engine. All being well we carried on on Friday arriving in York at lunch time. We made the most of our 48 hour mooring.

A sunny stroll through the walled city of York

 Took the open top bus round the city, twice! We learnt that the streets are called Gate. Gates in the wall are called Bars and bars are called pubs!
We also visited the Castle Museum, housed in the old women's prison. Also managed to see a show. Follies, which was very good.
We left York on Sunday morning just as Dragon Boat racing was about to start!

Many people enjoying the sunshine and the river.

One of the York Bars

Yesterday was an interesting day we reached Westwick Lock and there was a narrow boat stuck in the bottom of the lock. It's bow firmly wedged behind the gate. They asked us to let in water to bring them up but we were very concerned the boat was at an odd angle. Called Canal and River Trust. However something we did must have moved the boat and we were able to free them and we were all able to continue.  All this took about an hour! We moored and had lunch before anyone from Canal and River Trust arrived! Finally we moved off the river and we are now moored just outside of Ripon. We did a quick mooring yesterday just at the start of a thunderstorm!

On the way to York

We left Doncaster on Tuesday a week ago today. After a brief cruise we moored at Long Sandall Lock to have coffee. Very glad we did as following us was this big oil

Big boat, makes lock look small.

tanker. We were more than happy to watch it go through the lock and carry on ahead of us!
Not much commercial traffic on the waterway these days so it was good to see a ship in action.  We carried on that day for another 5 swing/lift bridges and one lock. Although along this stretch most are electrically operated so I just have to push a button! ? This took us off of the South Yorkshire Navigation and on to the

Guillotine gates either side of the aqueduct.

New Junction Canal. This picture is of the aqueduct near the start with the guillotine gates a either end to seal it. Thankfully these are left open.
This is only a short  canal, so Wednesday saw us join the Aire and Calder Navigation arriving at Goole later that day. Wednesday evening we had a totally unexpected visit from Adrian and Sarah. Some friends we made when we last visited Stafford Boat Club. They live in Leeds and had picked up from the blog that we were heading their way. So they drove over to see us. Hopefully we will see them again in the coming weeks as we will eventually head towards Leeds.

Waterways Museum at Goole

We spent a couple of pleasant days at Goole. The docks here are run by Associated British Ports and there are ships of all shapes and sizes! We also visited the Waterways Museum, very interesting, and I did some washing and was able to peg out!
We left Goole on Saturday making our way back on the Aire and Calder on past the point we joined it. This morning we have turned on to the Selby Canal, I will let you guess where that leads! Tomorrow we plan to head out of Selby Lock on to the River Ouse to York.