A night at Mirfield

Cor, some heavy old locks today! 

Monday and we set off from Wakefield to sail to Mirfield. Just under 10 miles today but also 10 locks to contend with. At the very first lock I was able to use the bit of wood I bought the other day for £15. 

As you can see above you place the ground spike (that's its name) into the winding gear and then heave on it as hard as you can. In some cases this raises the gate paddle and/or ground paddle, in others it doesn't! Many of the gates have hydraulic mechanisms but you can't tell which. So, half the time you're walking around with a thumping great bit of wood over your shoulder which you don't need to use. And of course, when you leave it on the boat, that's when you need it. I also found my double length windlass as some of the paddles are very odd and very stubborn - see below!

Now that's a type of ground paddle I haven't seen before and, boy, is it tough to operate. I reckon I won't have any trouble winding the church clock when I get back to Bradwell! 

Luckily, just after the second lock, we buddied up with a hire boat for the rest of the day. The only problem with that was that on a couple of the locks their boat was too long to get the gates shut. Luckily our experience with the Banbury locks paid off and we got their boat in sideways, closed one gate, straightened them up and then we came in beside them. 

Parts of the journey were on the river and some on the canal but it wasn't very photogenic, so, not many pictures. 

Here we are moored at Mirfield for the night. Tomorrow I will try to book our passage through the Standedge Tunnel for next Monday. The tunnel is only operational 3 days a week with a maximum of 3 boats through each way. Would like to make sure we can get through when we want to and not have to wait around too long.