A fine morning outside the Holiday Inn Express, Burnley, better than yesterday
We weren't able to be away early as we had an appointment with BBC Radio Lancashire with Claire coming out to talk to us as part of a live broadcast for the Morning Program. Andrew by this stage is an old hand at media interviews and it is a surprise to me that his polished presentation didn't have the Beeb chasing after us for more. In the event they didn't (perhaps they couldn't keep up!) and we were left to be able to make our way northward towards God's Own County.
Andrew being interviewed by Claire from BBC Radio Lancashire
We finally were away by 9.50am which would, we agreed, leave us enough time to get to the southern end of the tunnel for the 12.30 access (the tunnel has a traffic light system with a 10-minute window on the half-hour at the southern end - miss the window and you wait around for the best part of an hour). To get there involved an eight mile paddle followed by nigh-on a mile getting up the locks at Barrowford before a final paddle to the tunnel entrance. With David on hand to help wheel the kayak at the locks and aided by the fact that we were paddling at over 4 mph we reached the tunnel with a few minutes to spare.
Left, arrival at Foulridge Tunnel to be greeted by Monty and, right, exiting the tunnel
It was while having a break at the excellent Cafe Cargo at Foulridge Wharf that we experienced our second random act of kindness (we were to receive several more before the end of our adventures). Whilst passing the time of day with the crew of a wide beam boat, letting them know what we were doing (they had politely queried whether kayaks are allowed through the tunnel - they are now as of June 2017) and a few moments later the crew were on their way for a walk but not before having had a whip-round for our collection bucket. Thanks, you know who you are, sorry I didn't take names. Within a couple of minutes a couple arriving at their car in the car park immediately dug into their pockets. Ahhh....we were getting near the good generous folk of Yorkshire!
We then began the 16 mile paddle to Skipton and now that we were on the highest part of the canal all future locks would be downhill which would make porting easier. The first port was at Greenberfield Locks where David was to meet us and where, as he waited in the sunshine, he enjoyed yet more random acts in people just showing an interest in what were we doing (until now there seemed to have generally been little interest shown from the towpath). We were, after all, now in Yorkshire proper having paddled over the county boundary somewhere near Barlick.
Five hours after setting out from Foulridge we arrived in Skipton at 6.45pm, just about in time to make ourselves beautiful for the evening event at the Woolly Sheep Inn.
Our arrival in Skipton
After a quick change it was down to join the 30 people who had paid good money to help the charity (thanks to all of them) to attend what proved to be an excellent evening. All who were there thought the Woolly Sheep Inn was a place they would return to, the food was brilliant and Andy, the manager, ran the evening with a friendly and informative delivery.
To be highly recommended, although be careful if you are canoeing next day!
Woolly Sheep Manager, Andy Goodall, with the Team
The only downside of the event revolved my well-known lack of willpower - if provided with "free" beer I tend to be unable to resist the temptation to drink it and the evening proved no exception. This was exacerbated by my liking for "Ram Tam" which is rather too strong to be drunk like pop. I assured the team that I would be fine on the morning and that I had exercised restraint during the evening.
A great day, the weather was good, we were in Yorkshire, we were well over halfway at nigh-on 100 miles covered, we were with good people, we had achieved out target, what could go wrong from here?
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