Day 6: Barnoldswick to Burnley.

Sunday 12 July.

We stayed at the Fountain in in Barnoldswick. It had excellent food, but as a result it was busy and a bit noisy. Even so, with an early breakfast we were on the road by ten past nine. 

A short distance from the hotel we passed a gentleman taking his dogs for a walk. I asked if I could share their photo with you and he agreed.

From Barnoldswick to the Foulridge tunnel there are no locks and the water is at the highest level it will reach on the journey from Leeds to Liverpool. There are some interesting bridges however, with vertical rollers at the side, which were needed in the days of horse drawn barges. They were needed to reduce friction on ropes when bridges were located near bends in the canal. At Foulridge the canal passes through a tunnel and walkers must make a small detour to find the west portal of the tunnel. We became a little geograhically challenged at this point but did eventually find our way, through a lot of new housing, and skirted the Foulridge reservoir to reach the west portal of the tunnel. We think the reservoir is used to feed the canal system.

The first locks we encountered were a flight at Barrowford, some very near where the canal ran under the motorway.

After the motorway, the section of the canal between Barrowford and Nelson became a bit more urban  and untidy but the canals environ became greener again as we approached Burnley. 

We had another first today when we encountered 4 geese and a gosling on the towpath. We thought this surpring until we rounded the next bend to find approximately 30 geese on the towpath. Is someone feeding them up for Christmas?

 I was surprised how clean Burnley appeared, from our elevated view on the canal, and it was clear that old areas were still being demolished and redeveloped. 

We passed a busy pub, the 'Inn on the Wharf,' just as the canal turned west to skirt the south of the town. There were lots of bits of old canal machinery and industrial buildings in the area. Within a mile we had crossed the M65 by the canal and found our hotel for the night. The Holiday Inn Express. We walked back a mile to the 'Inn on the Wharf' for our evening meal. Food was good and prices reasonable.