Skipton Friday 25 May 2018

lay in bed this morning contemplating getting up and it started to rain, decision made, stay in bed a bit longer . Once up we ambled over to The 5 Rise Cafe for a cooked breakfast and very good it was too. £5-50 including toast and coffee. By the time we had finished it was really raining and muggins didn't have a coat on so my beloved wife went back to the boat and fetched one for me.

As we were in no hurry to get away we hung around until the rain stopped just after 12 o'clock, needles to say once on the move it started again for real, just look across these hills.

At Lodge Hill Bridge the bridge hole was full of goslings and a few adult geese, but they soon left the water as we approached them.

By now the weather was a bit of this and a bit of that but no sun, a real change from the past few days. When we reached Brunthwaite Swing Bridge Diana paused so that a CRT van could cross, she then tried to swing the bridge but couldn't move it. A boatman working on the towpath gave it a swing from the towpath side but it stopped dead, It took the efforts of the two CRT guy's who luckily she had let across the bridge to the offside to help her move it. When we left one was crawling underneath it with a red can of something.

We have passed several allotments, very few seem to grow food and most are sheds and pigeon lofts, I was rather taken by the sign outside this shed.

St Andrew's Church, Kildwick stands on the south side of the canal and the grave yard on the north side, it has its own bridge connecting the two across the canal and at the end of the bridge is a Lychgate into the grave yard.

Our next stop was Hamblethorp Swing Bridge where there is a large memorial plaque to the 7 Polish Airmen who died there.

The plaque gives the details of those that died.

A little to the south of the bridge on the side of the towpath is a much smaller one with just a small inscription at the bottom.

When we have moored at the head of the Thames there is always the worry that the cows will eat your mooring ropes and anything else they can wrap their tongue's around, well at Bradley Swing Bridge they were merrily licking away at the roof of a cruiser.

We carried on to Skipton for the night mooring in The Springs Branch.

Today's Journey 13 miles in 5½ hours