What a whopper

Ever since we started on the tidal Trent I've been keen to see one of the big commercial barges that operate on the waterways we've been using.
Now I have. And I pretty pleased we were tightly moored up at the time! They are big. In this case 182 feet long and getting on for 20 feet wide. It was a gravel barge on the return leg of its regular trip between Besthorpe on the Trent where it picks up 500 tons of sand and gravel  and the Lafarge wharf at Whitwood further down the Aire & Calder from us here at Pollington. It was one of three operated by the Branford family who've been commercial carrying on the area's waterways for many years and are now one of very few still in business.
We met the barge at the end of a day that started with thunderstorms but cleared after lunch and finished in a glorious sunny evening.When the rain stopped we left our mooring at Barnby Dun (not the nicest we've had because of the noisy traffic and an even noisier constantly barking alsation in a nearby house) and soon reached a Y-junction, the left fork of which is the New Junction Canal.

This was built in 1905 as a sort of waterway by-pass so that  commercial traffic could go between the Aire & Calder and the South Yorks Navigations without having to deal with the tidal Humber estuary. As a modern, functional canal it's arrow straight for its five mile length though boredom is broken by a series of swing and lift bridges along the way as well as a complicated lock that has a swing bridge in the middle of it! Not to mention a frail looking aqueduct over the River Don which had just a spindly handrail between us and the drop on one side.

At the top of the canal you swing left onto another wide commercial waterway, the Aire & Calder which runs east-west from Goole on the Humber to Castleford and up to Leeds as well as linking on to the various trans-Pennine waterways. It's another straight, wide waterway with huge locks that can take 200ft long vessels.
The original plan was to take it and the Calder&Hebble to join the Rochdale Canal for the Pennine trip. But the recent major flooding has badly affected the Rochdale so we've opted to take the long way round and go via the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. The alternative would have been the much shorter Huddersfield Narrow but we've done that and once is enough: the prospect of another three hours underground in the never -ending Standedge Tunnel breathing in the exhaust fumes from our smoky Petter was not something to contemplate. So it's Leeds-Skipton-Blackburn-Wigan-Manchester for us.

The curse of the knobbly knees

I put my shorts on ... and we've just had a thunderstorm!

Down to earth Doncaster

We stopped at Doncaster today on the return leg of our trip, the only major town we'd missed along the canal.
And I'm glad we made it because it's become our favourite – a straightforward, no-nonsense, down to earth sort of town that's a little bit old fashioned but in the nicest possible way.
From the visitor moorings it's just a short stroll past the magnificent Minster church to one of the town's high spots, the market, which was in full swing with outdoor bric-a-brac stalls as well as the familiar fruit and veg plus a sizeable indoor fish market. Shame we missed the wool market and international food hall which open on full market days (Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays).
The market area is lined with cafes: none of your continental rubbish but proper Yorksheer caffs serving fish, chips, mushy peas and scraps. Scraps? The left over bits of batter, crispy, crunchy and a heart attack in every handful. Needless to say, Starwoman pulled me away and bought a huge bag of "ripe, juicy plums" for 50p instead.
The town itself is a compact grid of busy streets, mixing old buildings with new shops and a couple of malls as well providing everything from House of Fraser to Poundland.
The town's old fashioned in another way: so many people smoke that the cleanest air is often to found inside the shops!
But we liked it.

PS I need to correct my previous post about the lack of visitor moorings: there are plenty but they are easy to miss. There is a long floating jetty, off which all the long term moorers sit but the outside of this jetty is apparently visitor space. Now you know.
None of which explains the huge concrete edged basin a couple of hundred yards away which is completely empty and aching to be moored in. What's that all about?

Brian's blog

I thought this was our summer cruise?

I've sat through the last three weeks pretty patiently - even though I've usually either been locked in the boat "on guard duty" while they go off shopping or sightseeing or else I've been stuck on the roof while we're going through locks. But now it's my turn to have a few words.
To be honest, I've been on better trips. It's been wet and windy most of the time so that means I'm stuck inside listening to that damned noisy engine or huddled up in my bed on the roof. And when it's sunny, well they strip off to tee shirts and shorts but what about me, stuck in my fur coat.
Worse still, I've been strapped into some sort of bright orange overcoat for half the trip. It even has a handle on the back which they use to pick me up and carry me about. What a plonker I must look! They say it's for my own safety because we're on a river. Fair enough, but they get smart, comfortable, self-inflating ones not a wrap-around mattress.
The sort of boating I enjoy is when I can walk between the locks and do a decent amount of sniffing and leg lifting (if you know what I mean). On these rivers there aren't enough locks and not enough places to walk either. I mean to say, we've just been in Sheffield for four days - what use is a city centre to a dog? Apart from all the pretty girls who always like to fuss me, that is. Woof, woof! Give me the countryside any time.

Trouble will be brewing later!

I did go on strike briefly and refused to eat my breakfast - that sort of behaviour does get them worried. But it backfired this time: she bought me a very nice rib bone. I was rather greedy, though, and I ate the lot. Result: three days of very unpleasant tummy troubles. I don't think he was best pleased at having to get up three times in the night to let me out! All's well now and they're even giving me milk on my morning dog food. Result!
We did have a nice day yesterday: I was walked around the city centre in the sunshine and even got to lick out the remains of their McFlurry tubs. (The things these humans eat!)
I quite liked the bus trip we went on the other day as well - though the first bus lurched and swayed all over the place. The driver seemed to be going just as fast as he takes us in our own car. Another sunny day - until it poured with rain and I got soaked while they put on rain coats.

Front seat view of Lincoln

A burger would have been better but a McFlurry's ok

Apparently we're off now to another canal: let's hope it is a bit more dog friendly than some of these. I'll let you know.

Exploring Sheffield

The beautiful Winter Garden

After a long weekend in Sheffield I think I've finally got the hang of the place. I reckon I have a decent sense of direction but there've been times here when I've just lost all my bearings in a city whose roads don't seem to conform to any logical city grid pattern.
The roads go every which way and there are trams - or 'supertrams' as they call them as well as cars, buses and bus lanes. Not only is it tricky to know where you're going but it's even dodgier to cross the road! At one pedestrian crossing there's even a recorded voice to warn that traffic is two-way rather than the one you'd expect.
The result is that you find some shops...and then some more...and then some more all popping up in different streets and malls. (We spent a fruitless hour looking for Waterstones and found it tucked in a hidden mall.)

A Supertram heads for town

Space age architecture at Hallam University

Sheffield is also a place that's been patchily regenerated over the years as time has been called on its old commercial and industrial zones. You can date its made-over districts by their style of their architecture. From the ugly '60s market - which is due for its next makeover soon - to the dramatic new Hallam University buildings and the fabulous Winter Garden. This isn't a Ken Dodd panto venue but a wonderful tropical glass-house and gallery venue right next to the Town Hall – a building which isn't to be confused with the City Hall which is somewhere else.
The Winter Garden is a great space and well used. Yesterday there was a cardboard box play area for kids among the giant palm trees. This morning mothers and babies swarmed everywhere for a special meet.

The Wall of Steel at the station

They like their water features here, too. Steel spheres running with water at the town hall and a pretty stunning steel wall coated with a skin of running water at the railway station. Look at the photo and see if you, like me, think it's supposed to symbolise a moving train.

Free-to-use table tennis tables dot the city

But Sheffield is known for its steel and its cutlery and yesterday we went to the Kelham Island Museum which tells the story of both. Sheffield has smelted iron since the 14th century but it was the coming of the canal and then the railway that gave it the vital connection to the outside world and helped these industries really grow.
Crucible steel making was devised in Sheffield to industrialise the conversion of pig iron to steel and the industry expanded with the invention of the terrifying Bessemer converter which, again, was pioneered here.

Bessemer Converter with scale-model Starwoman

Nothing sums up the scale of Sheffield's steel industry more than the monstrous 'River Don Engine' a small house-size steam engine built in 1905 to roll steel armour plate. This three cylinder engine has a 40 inch bore and 48 inch stroke and 12,000 horsepower. Yes, 12,000! We watched it run up to speed, it's huge flywheel rumbling with this astounding power.

The Monster - 12,000hp River Don engine

What's really extraordinary in the museum, though, is the evidence of the appalling working conditions of the men and women who worked in the steel and cutlery indsutries. Conditions that existed right up until the 1960s. Men working with molten steel in shirtsleeves. Or clamping cloths in their mouths to stop their lips burning. Women in vile conditions polishing and buffing silverware for a pittance.  It is easy to get nostalgic, as I do sometimes, for the days when Britain was an industrial powerhouse but the reality of those days was grim indeed.

One of three huge canal basin warehouses

Overall, we've enjoyed our time here. It's not in the top ranking cities we've boated to but fascinating and lively nonetheless. It's just a shame that the canal basin, which must be one of the most complete and significant in the system with its mighty warehouses, is so under-visited by boaters. And so quiet, too. There's hardly anyone around: a couple of bars and restaurants could liven it up and give it some of the sparkle of central Birmingham. As it is, the warehouses are now offices and, like many others in the city, currently empty of tenants and several of the little under-the-arches spaces are empty too. True, the city centre is just a few minutes away but boats, bars and visitors could bring some badly missed vitality to the basin.

A typically busy street scene in the Basin

Tonight the 2012 torch arrives in central Sheffield and there's a city-centre party in force to celebrate it. Tomorrow, like the torch, we head out of town and hope the sun continues to shine.

Sheffield in the rain

An early start this morning – even though it was Starwoman's birthday – so we  could head out of Rotherham, through a couple of locks and meet up with Dave the lockie who would supervise us through the remaining 13 on the way to Sheffield.
We were in tandem with a couple on Nb Wormcatcher who, unknown to us, have been shadowing our route since the start of the Trent.

Dave assists us through a lock

Dave supervises the canal and river system to Sheffield and has done so for 25 years. Along the way he was able to point out areas affected by the devastating floods of 2007. The river was so high then it was flowing over a road bridge above one of the locks, the M1 was closed because flood water damaged one of its supports, a railway embankment was all but swept away and in the city itself there was widespread devastation. (Check out the pictures on Google Images!)
Climate change and more pressure on the river to cope with the extra rainwater run-offs from more and more building mean it could all happen again, worries Dave.
Anyway, though it was raining today, it wasn't heavy enough to be of concern: unpleasant for us, all the same, with bursts of sharp showers and high, gusting winds.
After passing through two river locks we reached the Tinsley Flight up to Sheffield of eleven locks: they're all double width and pretty heavy but quite why they are all security-locked up so comprehensively and need lock-keeper assistance we none of us ever quite fathomed. The ubiquitous 'scrote key' seems to deter the hoodlums well enough elsewhere (and anyway, to be honest, there wasn't much sign of hoodlum activity along the flight, which was all very well kept.
After the locks the two mile run into Sheffield takes the familiar industrial back alley route of most urban canals. There's evidence of steel stockholding and working everywhere which is good to see.
Finally we reached the basin at Victoria Quays. It's an impressive spectacle, with a 'straddle warehouse' across the waterway as which boats were once loaded or emptied and two other huge Victorian warehouses as well.

Nearing the top of the Flight

There are plenty of boats moored up in there. But we're not - the basin is full of boats for sale and some long term moorings. Visitor moorings are on the towpath outside with no electric. What a way to treat people who've come all this way to see a city. You're not going to stay long if you have to sit on an insecure footpath, and run your engine every few hours for hot water or battery charging. A few days in a historic canal basin really ought to be part of the South Yorkshire Navigations experience.

Down the town

It briefly stopped raining this morning so we took a 30 minute stroll down the towpath to explore Rotherham town centre.
You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that Rotherham is not a well off place: the clues are in the shops: any number of pound-somethings, bargain brand-name clothes and food shops and a collection of pawnbroker style outlet offering to lend you money, or buy your gold - or anything.

For all that, there's a pleasant enough sort of place lurking beyond the rather bland main shopping streets. The splendid Victorian town hall has been cleverly modified to become a small shopping arcade and one of the similar vintage markets now houses a little collection of characterful 'arty' outlets.
There are some handsome old buildings and shop fronts too as well as a very big and fascinating Minster church and we found ourselves a pretty little individual coffee shop for a drink and home-made cake.
All in all, a good morning's stroll around - and we almost missed the rain on the way back. Just got ourselves soaked in the last 200 yards, dammit.
Tomorrow we head toward Sheffield with our passage booked through some 15 locks to get there. Unfortunately all the radio talks about this evening is the forecast for even more rain.