South out of town.

After a day off yesterday we were away this morning, heading out of Leeds. The gas arrived early afternoon, just as well as I’d knocked up the mixture for a batch of chocolate-chip and banana muffins in the morning!

They came out well…

…taste good, too!

It was cool as we set off today, a bit of a breeze had sprung up, but it was blowing in the right direction to help rather than hinder as we reversed away from the pontoon moorings at Granary Wharf.


River Lock, Lock 1 of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, drops us down onto the River Aire as it flows through the city.

The river emerges under the futuristic south entrance of Leeds railway station.
But behind the fancy façade lurk the old Dark Arches…

Three-quarters of a mile downstream the river passes under Crown Point Bridge…

…then the Royal Armouries comes into view, under dramatic skies.

We’re now on the short lock cut leading to Leeds Lock that was almost completely submerged during the Boxing Day floods last year.

It’s a little calmer today.

On the island and in the weir stream the flood protection works continue.

Push button now, no more shoving and winding for a bit!


Below the lock we pulled onto the service pontoon to give Meg a chance for a pee, and to get rid of rubbish that had accumulated since Apperley Bridge.

I’d just set off again when a large floating platform appeared around the corner, so snuck back in again.


It obviously wouldn’t fit through the lock, so it must be a work platform for use below the weir.

We’re heading out now, through the south-east ‘burbs towards Stourton. An old mill building is all boarded up, prime for conversion I would have thought.

At the top end of Knostrop Falls Lock sat a flood lock, but recent removal of the peninsula between the lock cut and the river channel has made it redundant.

We go past it now…


…and the structure has been replaced by large pipes.

Knostrop Falls Lock, the chambers are getting bigger now…

We don’t rejoin the river below Knostrop Falls, instead the navigation is the Aire and Calder Canal, running just to the south of the river channel. There’s a long length of permanent moorings at Thwaite Mills Industrial Museum.

Steam crane at the museum


I’d picked up a couple of logs just above Newlay Locks. There were more, but someone had beaten me to them. Anyway, I didn’t want to cut them on the popular moorings above Woodlesford Lock so pulled in on the wharf below Thwaite Mills. It’s rough here, so another pile of wood chippings wouldn’t matter. It only took a few minutes to reduce the logs to rounds ready for splitting later.

Leaving the old wharf. 
The wharf was built as a holding area for boats delivering to and collecting from The Yorkshire Copper Works on the opposite side of the navigation.

Under the A1/M1 Link Road…


…and approaching the unusual concrete bowstring bridge.

It’s unimaginatively called -


Fishpond Lock was our fourth and final lock as we moored above Woodlesford.

Woodlesford moorings


It’s good to be out in the country again.

Locks 4, miles 5½