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Tuesday 15 August 2017

Non stop to Naburn.

It started raining about 0600 this morning and hasn't stopped yet, and I am writing this at 1800. We are on a bit of a deadline as we are heading to London this week so we have to go regardless.

I went to the lock to set it. We weren't the first as another boat had gone down. Where it had come from I know not. The boat on the out side of the wide beam is Rune who are also bloggers. I didn't notice until we passed on the way to the lock and as it was raining there was nobody out and about.

The lock house is now a licenced cafe with a campsite nearby. It wasn't opened when we passed through the lock. The top gates are normal but the bottom gates have an horizontal hand wheel to operate the paddles just like on the Beverley Beck Lock gates.

The fish ladder was really running today, and the Archimedes screw would have been churning out the power with the flow. You have to admire the power and determination of a salmon or a trout that will get up there to its spawning rounds. Not quite the same as having to go to a disco to find girls to chat up!!

It was cold last night but I wasn't prepared for seeing bergy bits floating past in the river! Of course it is a long lasting blob of foam from the weir at Litton.

This is the east buttress of the toll bridge at Aldwark. On the other side is the free wharf and it was here in 1812 I think it was that a bunch of lads where on the old wooden bridge watching ice floes grounding on the landing from the bridge. It seems that they were running backwards and forwards to see them and somehow the railings broke and twelve lads fell into the water. Only one body was recovered!

This is the fourth church at Newton on Ouse since founding in Anglo Saxon Times. The tower is the oldest surviving bit that is dated as late 11th Century or early 12th Century. In 1838 William Dawnay of Beningbrough Hall decided to remodel All Saints and then ten years later his sister, Lydia, did the same in the Gothic Revival style.

This is where the River Nidd enters the Ouse at Nun Monkton. It is quite a nice spot and the Alice Hawthorn Inn has just installed a small pontoon mooring.

We were soon entering York. The Museum Gardens moorings were almost full and the level was lower too. We soon passed The Yorkshire Herald building. They started in a building next door when they took over then Ebor Hall for the Yorkshire Evening Press before moving here. In fact I think the last commercial cargoes brought from Goole to York was newsprint imported from Sweden for the publication. The building now house a cinema and a number of bars, plus the riverside walkway.

We passed Queens Staith on the way up, when the weather was better. There was more room on the way down, and the water level was lower, but the weather was wetter , hence why I used an earlier photo. The gantry crane, the smaller of the two on the left, was the subject of a demolition request by the Sea Cadets whose HQ is just by it. It was built over 100 years ago. Obviously the bid was turned down. It would be a shame to lose a piece of industrial architecture.

On the other side of the river is the King's Staith that is seen by many people, especially when the river floods and the pubs get inundated. There are moorings for narrow boats here and if you get close to a ladder access is easy. the only problem is all the passes by.

The rain was pretty heavy by now and the camera didn't come out of the pocket again. We were doing about 5.3 knots and were soon at Naburn Lock. With all the rain I decided to moor up on the floating pontoon so I didn't have to worry about checking the lines for rising water levels. We are due out on the tidal river about 1000 tomorrow.

Sorry for the delayed post as we have been down to London for a few days.

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