So, are we there yet?: Movin up

First week of pootlin' complete and we are in the little village of Kildwick somewhere on the eastern edge of the Pennines in glorious sunshine (forecast to snow next week). No shops but one rather nice looking pub which is one reason for stopping as its Sunday tomorrow and we will have to assess their Sunday Lunch. As usual, we have found that this canal has solved the problems of going up in a different way. All the double locks have ground paddles as well as those in the gates themselves and all are bloody heavy. In addition there are more swing bridges than you can shake a Yorkshire stick at and some of them are even worse. We had to delicately ram one today to get it to move.
Also, rather than having flights of locks seperated by pounds, many on the climb up from Leeds are in 'staircases' of two or three. This means one lock empties directly into the next and although hardly rocket science one does have to think carefully about managing the water levels. The most challenging, the famous 'Bingley Five rise' was actually a doddle as there were two permanent lock keepers and two volunteers so we didn't have to do a thing. We're heading to Skipton on Monday which is meant to be really nice and it has a chandlery. This is necessary as we have already lost two of the rather horrid rope fenders that came with the boat and I want to replace them all and buy other stuff - I have a list but I bet it won't reflect what I actually buy.