A Fine Day Out and Back to York

Our lovely sunny evening in the pretty basin at Ripon evolved into a lovely sunny morning and an early start had us off the boat at 9.30am and heading to catch a bus to Fountains Abbey.  There was no bus.  They don't run on a Wednesday but no one has told the Traveline App that.........  Anyway, we got a taxi which was less than a tenner for the three of us, so probably not much more than the bus anyway - and we got a commentated ride with some extra local gossip - ooops, I mean history thrown in ;)  It was still very quiet when we arrived at Fountains Abbey and we felt as if we had the place to ourselves.

The stunning ruins of Fountains Abbey, founded in 1132 by 8 monks!!  Obviously lots more arrived over the years and helped to make it the size we see today.

 We wandered ourselves for a while, enjoying the peace and tranquility, not to mention the warm autumn sun, then joined a guided tour at 11.30.  After the tour and lunch we walked to the Studley Royal Water Garden.

The Studley Royal Water Garden is actually what gives the site its World Heritage status - not the abbey!

 We got back to Quaintrelle at 4pm and cast off, aiming to get to Boroughbridge for the evening.  It was a lovely evening and we had a great cruise.

Approaching Bell Furrows Lock on the Ripon Canal

Such was the beauty of the evening, Mike felt a JUMP was in order :)

 As we cruised through teatime, Mr Heron had been out to get dinner..... (this was in focus til I cropped it to zoom in..)

Froggy went a' courtin' no more :(

Mr Heron decides to have a takeaway

 

We passed Newby Hall and stopped to get a better picture this time.

Newby Hall - the full view this time....

 And we arrived at Boroughbridge around half six.  As soon as the sun had started to drop, so had the temperature so we quickly got the tea on and the Heritage got the boat warmed up.  On Thursday we had an easy start to the day with a bit of a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast.  We left Boroughbridge with NB Seyella around 10.30am aiming to be at York by around 4ish.  The locks are short on this stretch and we are the max length, 57 foot.  So was Seyella and whilst we both got into the locks together, there was a bit of tight manouevring to get us out.  We managed, and left Seyella to follow, but looking back a few minutes later saw she was still wiggling around in the lock....
When she caught us up at Linton on Ouse, she had had to take her nose fender off as she'd been just a little too long to get out :(  We went down the Linton lock together, stopped for water and lunch, then set off again.  About half way to York from there, I decided, having been monitoring our broken toilet tank gauge which seemed to have started working, to do a visual check of the tank.  Anyone think this would be a good idea????  As the gauge popped out of its seal, a geyser of sewage bubbled out.  After a few startled, "OH OH OH..."s I had the presence of mind to stick the gauge back in.  I then "Euuugh Euuugh Euuuugh" d a few times whilst trying not to breath in at the same time, then broke the news to Mike.  "The shit-tank's rammed." :(  Apologising to my mum for the smell (she's a mum, I'm sure she's smelled sewage before), I went back to clean up the remains of the geyser swimming around the little hole the gauge sits in, wondering how much of it had run out and under the boards to the rest of the boat........ Nice.

This was mum having her first go of steering the boat.  Later she pointed out that she hadn't put her glasses on!! And if you could see her feet, she was standing in her slippers :)

 So we got to York and kept going, the nearest pump out was Naburn lock, an hour away.  We hoped the pump out was working.  We hoped our CRT cards to operate the pump out machine would work - they can be a bit flaky sometimes :(  To add to the stress of geyser-gate, we had a table booked at The Star Inn the City for 7.15pm, so time was getting tight.  And we arrived at the pump out at Naburn to find a cruiser on the water point, so we had to wait.  We finally got hooked up to pump out and thankfully the second card I tried worked.  It was the slowest pump out machine EVER.  We actually didn't know if it was emptying us or not.  We were too nervous to put much water into rinse out, in case we ended up with a tank full of water, so we didn't.  We have been paying for that decision today - it stinks!!
Anyway, with room created for our waste, we headed back up to York taking turns to get ready for going out to dinner.  I drove the last stretch into York in my silk penguin dress in full make-up and jewellery - first time for everything......  As I moored up, Mike was stepping out of the shower and mum and I left him to lock up the boat and went ahead to the restaurant - arriving at 7.18pm.
We ordered a magnum of red wine.  And drank most of it.  The meal was lovely and we all slept well.
Mike went to work on Friday and mum caught her train back up to Inverkeithing and I cleaned the inside of the boat from top to bottom. 
 

An early start meant we saw the beautiful early morning light for once.

We had another booze-infused weekend in York; beer festival on Friday, tea, bath and wine at Vicki's on Saturday, Sunday lunch back at the Star on Sunday - with wine, and gig (and a couple of pints) on Sunday evening.

The Glass Trapps - very talented young lads

On Monday we were booked to come back down the tidal section of the Ouse, out at Naburn lock and in at the dreaded Selby.  It was chucking it down when we left with two passengers, Streety and Nigel, on board.  We stopped to bid adieu to James and headed off.  Streety and Nigel left us at Naburn and we had an uneventful cruise down to Selby.  

All aboard who's going aboard.

 We were dreading the turn into Selby lock.  The tide had now turned and was carrying us along at quite a speed.  It wasn't our best manouevre but we managed the turn to come back up against the tide and in to the lock - just the one bump as we came in ;)  We're happy to be safe and sound in the Selby basin again and looking forwards to getting back on the canals.

Leaving York under a cloud :(