More of August 19-8-10 to 21-8-10

We failed on the Bingley 5 Rise on Wednesday as BWB had just started only allowing boats to through in pairs and to save water even more it was up in the morning and down in the afternoon.  We arrived at 2.30pm and were told we could go down if another boat came along.  But there wasn’t one so Amy & tim had to go back to their cottage without doing the locks.  On Thursday morning I had a mobile mechanic come to look at the engine because yesterday morning soon after setting off  it suddenly seemed to lose power.  It kept going ok but I didn’t want any problems when we went on to the River Trent.  It turned out to be a combination off  dirty fuel filter and air filter and some water in the fuel.  He changed both and ran off the water and it was then fine and smoother I thought.  We went down the locks with Lottie in the afternoon ok and moored for the night at Saltaire.  This whole place had been built by Titus Salt a wealthy mill owner back in 1800 & …. To improve the working conditions of his staff and included everything that they needed, like schools, shops, houses etc. but no pubs as he was strictly tee total.  I was amused to find a restaurant ( serving alcohol) called ‘don’t tell Titus’.  On Friday Amy & Tim joined us again having packed and left their cottage but the time they had and then gone shopping in the Salt Mill we didn’t leave until 3ish and were too late for the next set of locks which closed before we got there so poor old Jago still didn’t get to do any locks.  We had heard by this time from one of the lock keepers that the last 6miles to Leeds of the Leed Liverpool canal was closed because of low water levels in 2 of the pounds, and that it might be open again by Sunday as they were sending water down. We said farewell to Amy & Tim and waited till the morning for the locks to open.  While we were waiting I took the opportunity to fit the new impellor, so now the generator was working again.   Also waiting at the lock was another couple Phil and Shirley who had borrowed their daughters boats for 3 days and the head gasket had gone so they were stuck.  We offered to tow them to Rodley where they moor, so we pulled him into 5 locks and towed him about 5 miles which was a first for us.  We lazed for the rest of the day as we could not go any further.  Luckily a BW man came along and informed us that if we got to the next lock by 9am then we could go on through to Leeds.  This was good news to Bev & John an Australian couple in Matilda who had been waiting there since Wednesday, so our timing was quite good really.  In the evening Phil & Shirley insisted on taking us out for an Indian….lovely.