Carnforth

Today's Canal - Lancaster

We are still in slow mode, stretching out the length of the Lancaster to fit the longer time before the Ribble crossing. This will certainly make a dent in our daily average stats for this year! We have done the trips that we had identified when planning the trip from home so we are now looking for others. Of course the main problem is that we have to find places that are accessible by public transport. We did think about bringing the car up here rather than to Swanley Bridge for just this purpose but when we made the choice we thought that we had enough to do! It would be handy right now but it is too far to go and fetch it, really.

Mike had a phone call to deal with first thing so it was half way through the morning before we left Capenwray Arm. This photo shows the entrance and the space where we moored on the right. As can be seen, there was not quite a long enough straight section for our length.

The arm was used for loading limestone from the large Wegber Quarry complex - we think that it is wholly disused now for quarrying as a large caravan site occupies all of it, judging by Google imagery. 

Google has not yielded any background information about the quarry but for one paper that describes a find in 1884 of several bronze age items. At that time the land was owned by the Earl of Crawford and Belcarres, a Scottish peer and one of the oldest titles in Great Britain. At one time he was a Conservative MP before moving to the Lords.

We passed over Keer Aqueduct, one of John Rennie's original structures. We did not stop to look at the structure below the canal but a picture can be seen here, showing that there is much more to it than appears from above.

In places the reeds were closing in ever  more - we are convinced that the space has reduced significantly since we came up!

The milestone on this part of the canal appear to be rather older than the fancy ones on the southern part and they do seem to be rather shy, often hiding in the undergrowth.

We continued under the motorway bridges and then into Carnforth. We called at the service block before moving forward a boat length to moor for the next two nights (the spot where we moored last week seemed to be full)

After a planning investigation we opted to stay here and take a trip out to the coast tomorrow  - but we will see. Come back tomorrow to find out!

2.8 Miles - 0 Locks