A Day out to Bingley 5-Rise Locks

When I lived in England, I spent many weekends and holidays boating on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It was a very relaxing pastime and even when it rained it wasn't so bad. The only physical aspect of these trips were operating the locks and swing bridges along the way, but who doesn't like being able to stop traffic!

During our visit we went out to Bingley and stopped at Bingley 5-Rise, it is so called because there are 5 locks for boats to go up or down, unlike many locks, these are manned by a lock-keeper. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, operating a lock is somewhat like filling and emptying a huge bath, in order to get a boat up or down, except instead of a bath and plug you have bodies of water between gates and sleuth gates that open and close to let water in or out, it can be hard work, but a lot of fun.

Here we are at the bottom of Bingley 5-Rise.

And at the top.

We posed for a family photo on the tiny foot-bridge,but Amelia was more interested in looking down into the lock at the water below than at the camera.

Daddy steals a kiss from his little girl, whilst Amelia sits on one of the beams that is used to push open the gate, most of the beams are hundreds of years old.

It looks a long way down from the foot-bridge...

Below is the view looking up from an empty lock to a full lock.

Which way would you like to go? I also spent a lot of time at Apperley Bridge, in fact the swing bridge (which was run by a touch of a button) once got stuck whilst I was operating it, the traffic had to turn around, I was so embarrassed.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a romantic stroll on the towpath. We even saw a heron looking for it's tea.

What a fun trip down memory lane!