Men behaving strangely!

This trip gets more and more strange by the day and yet strangely interesting! I love cities; you get all sorts of bizarre people doing bizarre things!

Scrap metal I presume and this gentleman of Eastern European appearance was dangling a fishing rod in the water every so often except when I came along and then he turned his back to me - I guess supper was being sought! Mind you, by far the strangest thing was this scene at Coopers Bridge where at least 5 BW staff were engaged in the ludicrous task of raking and netting the floating fairy moss out. We tried to help by blasting the throttle as we left to push a load intot he lock chamber and they were all pleasant enough but really please, was it honestly a cost effective task to have 5 members of BW staff spending all day with 'tiddler' fishing nets? Before we had left the lock we'd designed a system of ropes and a plank to drag the stuff down which surely would have been better especially since the same quantity of weed was in the next 2 pounds!

Anyway, the Huddersfield Broad was interesting with more heavy lock gear but this interesting lift bridge to work out - 6 separate steps were required to operate this bridge!Then the biggest shock of all! The sheer short-sightedness of Huddersfield City Council. The town centre was dull and un interesting. We had hoped to stop a while and do a bit of shopping but this wasn't to be. Huddersfield, I proclaim, is the least visitor boating friendly place on the planet! At first, we thought we were in for a treat when we saw this beautiful new Sainsbury's complex complete with excellent moorings and decorative victorian style lighting.

But our mood soon changed when we realised that the whole frontage was permanent long term moorings and there was zero space anywhere for visitors passing through. In fact; high security railings and gates prevented anyone from accessing town from waterfront or waterfront from town - even though the windows in the alcoves along the wharf front housed Sainsbury's own restaurant. Clearly the town planners in this city have never ventured far enough south to reach Banbury and see how it should be done - no wonder the surrounding canalside is such a hostile place. Cruising through you get quite a feeling of being the 'Great Unwashed'! Indeed this was the only location on the whole trip where hostile youths were encountered and an incident narrowly averted. 3 ferrile creatures resembling young humans were leaning over a bridge right in the city centre and in full view of everyone picked up some very large rocks. One pulled his arm back to throw it at us and I hastilly grabbed the camera and pointed. They dropped their 'weapons of little distruction' and ran! We were still a little unnerved as we reached the first lock of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal.

....and then the adventures really started!

After lock 5E there was no water in the pound. Well that's not strictly true as there were a few floundering fish flapping wildly in the inch or so present! We flushed some through but then realised that this was going to cause trouble in the next pound so BW were called. The lady in the office was so helpful and kind, thanking us for informing them and assuring us that engineers wouod be out soon. She even called me back later to check we were OK. 2 BW opeart6ives did arrive and I would liked to have shown you them - our 'knights in shining armour'. They arrived, flushed a few locks through, leaving a boat moored on the other side in an emergency as the man had a temperature of 102 stranded and listing severely - blamed the problem on the boaters who left paddles open, told us that locking was just common sense and implied that most boaters didn't have any, got back in their brand new shiny van which had BW related advertising all over it and screeched off!

We flushed through a few more locks above the now stranded lady on her boat to level her and made very slow progress through this!

This was BW's way of solving a problem clearly - we were disgusted!

Now - a question: what do you do when only one top paddle works, both bottom paddles are fully closed, the boat has stopped rising and there is still around 4 inches of water to go?

Answer - this!

Along with the short and long handled windlasses, anti vandal key, BW watermate key, Hand spike for the C & H, can of WD40 for the Rochdale, mallet to get the anti vandal locks open and release the jammed mechanisms on the Huddersfield Narrow, we have now added a small block of wood to our essential lock operation survival kit which you will see marketed on Dragon's Den packed in a handy shopping trolly, (which can be disposed of in the local waterway when it becomes life extinct,) very soon!

You see, you drive the boat at the gate and when it has openened a few inches, simply drop the wooden block between the gate and seal before the pressure of the water pushes the boat back and closes the gate again. After a few moments, the water has poured in and the gates can be opened fully allowing the skilled operator to retrieve the wooden block which will float into the lock chamber and proceed on their travels!Anyway, thanks to a tip off from the wife of the man who husband had a temperature, we are now moored here.Quite pleasant - just above lock 15E and about the only place with enough water to get the boat to the bank!