Yorkshire canal trip 2015 – Fergy's Rambles.

This is the place to start – a site log.

Good day one and all and thank you so much for visiting my site here about my various travels both near and far and my musings on just about everything. If you wish to read my latest entries please go to the one immediately below this and work back as they go in reverse order (most recent to oldest) from there. Alternatively, if you wish to search for something in particular then please use the search panel in the upper right corner.

I have owned this site since January 2018 and have been working very hard trying to resurrect writings from long ago which were previously on other websites.

Eventually I have worked out how to pin (I believe that is the techie term) this page so it remains at the top of my list of entries. I have decided that the only way for me to keep any vague semblance of order is to backdate the entries of my various trips to the relevant dates which may make them hard to find and so I am creating this page to assist you – hopefully! I shall keep you informed below of completed travelogues and those under construction. Please do read on for the latest offerings. Continue reading “This is the place to start – a site log.”

Sadly, it is home time again.

Despite the slight excess (I stress slight as it was in my terms) of the previous day I was up early as I had to vacate my room because this was to be the last day of my trip and I had an evening train booked back to London. I asked the young lady in the bar if it would be possible to leave my kit there rather than lug it around and she very kindly agreed to stow it for me. I should mention at this point whilst researching for this small series of blogs that I read, admittedly on the rather good Calderdale Tourist website in the interest of fair reporting, that people round here are very friendly and I cannot find any fault with that statement. Continue reading “Sadly, it is home time again.”

Happy in Halifax (and the other place).

Let’s explore the home base.

I woke relatively early on the 9th after great night’s sleep and headed out for my last full day in West Yorkshire. I had decided that I had not really explored much of Halifax yet and I even had a vague plan if I could ever be said to have a plan but today I wanted to visit the local military museum and an art gallery. Yes, Fergy was going to actually get bit of culture for a change odd as that may sound. Aimless wandering is normally the order of the day but at least I had a vague notion of which direction to head on this not overly warm day although at least it was not raining. Continue reading “Happy in Halifax (and the other place).”

On my tod in Tod.

The morning of the 8th arrived to find me in my very comfy bed in the Old Post Office hotel in Halifax. As always I shall start with a very brief explanation and the obligatory apology to my regular readers. If you have happened upon this page by accident, which happens given the vagaries of search engines, it is in the middle of a set of entries about a canal trip I made in Yorkshire with some great friends back in September 2015 and if you go to the bottom of the page you can get back to the start which I do recommend as it may make a little more sense that way.

Now that is out of the way, let’s get on. For one like me that is fairly nocturnal I was up at a reasonably civil hour and ready to go. The weather was not great but not horrible and, as I had no option of breakfast in my hotel (a meal I rarely take anyway) it was time to hit the road. Continue reading “On my tod in Tod.”

Cruising ends and exploring begins.

I do hope the reader has come upon this page by way of those previous and, if not, I would recommend they have a look back a few entries on this site as this will all make a bit more sense.

My friends Gilly and Aly and I had awoken very early on the “good ship Westmorelend” i.e. the canal boat we had hired for a weekend in the little backwater called Salterhebble. I use the word backwater advisedly as it is, being a now closed off section of what was formerly the Halifax canal but is now really the “road to nowhere” being probably a mile or a little more to a basin and a decent enough bar / restaurant (see previous entry) but we had to be on the move early. The boat needed to be back by 0900 and I expect most folk on a short hire probably moor up “back at base” but I was very glad that we had not as we were treated to a simply beautiful early autumnal morning which was probably the most aesthetically pleasing of the trip. Continue reading “Cruising ends and exploring begins.”

Turn round and come back again.

I do hope you have come upon this page by way of the previous entries in this series regarding a wonderful canal trip I took in 2015 with three great friends who I had met through a now sadly demised and brilliant travel website called Virtual Tourist which was killed off in the interest of corporate greed.

If you have happened upon this site looking for Salterhebble or whatever, here is a quick precis. My friends and I were having a weekend excursion on the Calder and Hebble canal / river system in Yorkshire and, for some inexplicable reason, I had been attacked savagely by some sort of severe stomach disorder which had left me in my bunk and so incapacitated that I genuinely cannot tell you where we had moored the previous night as I was suffering so much (not even my own bunk, just the one nearest the heads) and was still not feeling great that morning although thankfully better than the Hell of the night I had had before. I really do not ever want to go through that again. Continue reading “Turn round and come back again.”

It all went horribly wrong.

Let’s get going again.

After our first night aboard the next morning came and we were all up pretty early despite the previous night’s carousing. We had not planned it as such and I do not think anyone had set an alarm but I reckon we were all just excited about where we were and eager to explore some more and so, after a simple but tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast it was time to slip the moorings but not before I have had another literary excursion here. Sorry, I just cannot help myself. Continue reading “It all went horribly wrong.”

Let’s get on the Cut.

My second day in Yorkshire arrived and I was up at some unholy hour although it must be said that my night’s sleep had been completely undisturbed even though I was facing the road but there was precious little traffic about by the time I wandered home. I could probably have slept in the road fairly well undisturbed.

As I mentioned in the last piece here, I had had very good “Indian” meal the evening before and breakfast is a meal I rarely take as my stomach does not really get going until a couple of hours after I rise. The number of very decent hotel breakfasts I have passed up is appalling. Continue reading “Let’s get on the Cut.”

I get to the other Halifax.

A word of explanation.

For those of you who may have stumbled upon this page accidentally, perhaps searching for information about leisure activities in Yorkshire, specifically in respect of canals, I offer a quick word of explanation here.

Virtually all of the content on the following pages was saved against the best efforts of an evil corporate entity who bought over a great website that I wrote for for 12 years and who are Hell-bent on being the only travel site online and will stop at nothing to do it. As this is my site and the content is meant to be in a more narrative style I shall attempt to edit as appropriate but I make no apologies for the fact that some paragraphs may read like reviews which is what they were originally written as. Certainly, at time of re-writing this here in November 2018 I am sure much of the information is out of date. I have attempted to verify if places mentioned are still functioning and will indicate where not but this is mostly a personal remembrance of a wonderful trip undertaken with great friends in the early Autumn of 2015. Continue reading “I get to the other Halifax.”