Now on the Aire and Calder - note not the Calder and Hebble :)

We left Wakefield this morning tackling one of the heaviest gates that I have ever had to open and close manually.  Fall Ing lock was humongous and the bottom gates were extraordinary heavy but between Barbara and myself we managed.

That was the last of the manual locks for a while as from here they are all electronic, bliss for the moment.

And after spending £15 on a Calder and Hebble spike, I only ended up using it ONCE and Andrew did not take a photo of me at the time either!  Well we have a nice block of oak to hand now.  It may just come in handy as a bat or an intimidator when we are cruising the not so nice areas around Liverpool and Manchester :D

So just a short jaunt today as far as Stanley Ferry, where there are two aqueducts over the River Calder. The second newer aqueduct was built as the 'old' one could not handle the stresses of increased traffic.  As expected once the new one was built and opened, traffic decreased dramatically as the railways took over !  Not to worry, Andrew has decided that because he can, he is going to go over one, u-turn and go over the other. Then of course we will be facing the wrong way and he will have to decide which one he wants to go over a second time ;)  but that will be tomorrow.

Old Aqueduct across the River Calder

Old (right) and New (left) from the bridge over the canal

You can see Ashdown moored just to the left of the arch on the old aqueduct

The rest of the day has been spent on a walk to have a good view of the two aqueducts and Andrew gave the one side of the boat a good clean and polish  :D

And the results of the walk

Three different types of thistle

Himalayan Balsam (Impatience Grandiflora)

Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium)

Gatekeeper

Comma

Narrow-bordered Five Spot Burnet (Zygaena Ionicerae)

Finch but not sure which one. Seemed to be mum and baby.

and finally our mooring for the night with nb Compton behind us