The Calder & Hebble Navigation continues to switch from river to canal cut and it's beautiful. The sun is shining the trees are such fantastic colours and the birdlife is fantastic, lots of little finches darting about, the odd kingfisher and very friendly and hungry ducks. A lock heavy day sees us moored above Battyeford Lock tucking into a divine interpretation of coq-au-vin, couple of beers and an early night.
Early start to the day with Lexie very dextrously getting her new football out of the bucket then taking it to Adrian for a game of football. The ball ends up in the canal twice but thankfully can be easily retrieved. Oh what fun they seem to be having! Strangely Adrian gets bored of this game more quickly than she does. I think it's time for breakfast.
On we go and the scenery just continues to get more and more picturesque. Mid-morning we meet up with Marion and John who are on their way back to Sowerby Bridge which is where we're headed for the night so we team up in locks, four people makes life so much easier and we cover 18 locks today. They are returning a hire boat they've had for a week and are surprised that we are friendly, it seems hire boaters are frowned upon by most. They've got years of boating experience but have never taken the plunge and purchased. I think the snobbery is really aimed at people who get on a boat and then just bounce off anything that gets in the way.
Sowerby Bridge is beautiful, very quaint and old fashioned, but full of contemporary eating houses and plenty of little independent shops. Adrian grabs a shower and I head off to see the lock keeper at Tuel Lane Lock. This evening is spent in the company of John and Marion in The Navigation. Plenty of beer and wine are consumed along with some very pleasant home cooking. I'd been dreaming about steak and ale pie with chips since the start of this trip - oh look, there's that diet again. 1am sees us dragging ourselves off Marion & John's boat and heading back to Atticus. Why didn't we make the bed up before we went out?
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