Short Break Route Suggestions (3 & 4 nights):
Relaxed route: Hebden Bridge & Stubbing Wharf and return - 14 miles, 20 locks, 11 hours total
Relax in Hebden Bridge and take two amazing walks.
As part of your instruction and handover, we take you up through the first three locks, including the deepest one in the country. You then sail off along the side of the valley to Luddenden Foot (pubs with food, playground and good moorings). The next two locks take you to Mytholmroyd – pubs with food, the Bar & Tapas and two convenience stores.
Mytholmroyd is the birthplace of Ted Hughes. You can see the outside of his birthplace, stand under the bridge where he wrote The Long Tunnel Ceiling, and look out for Hawk by Kenny Hunter just beside Lock 7.
The canal carries on through Fallingroyd Tunnel to Hebden Bridge. You can moor in the centre of town. There's a good choice of pubs, restaurants and cafés. There are really good butchers, bakers and fruit and veg, plus a variety of whole and exotic foods with farmers and craft markets. And book shops, crafts, kitchenware....
Hebden is a good base for two amazing walks. One goes up to Heptonstall, a village on the tops which is completely real and untouristy, with Sylvia Plath’s grave in a romantic ruined churchyard, and an octagonal Wesleyan chapel. The other is along Hardcastle Crags, a steep wooded valley with winding paths (ideal for your children to lose you), a stream at the bottom, huge ant hills, and a National Trust tea at the end.
Leaving the centre of Hebden Bridge, keep on through the town and gradually wind up the valley, with woods, crags and the Calder running alongside. Turn below Lock 12 before stopping at our boater's favourite pub, the Stubbing Wharf.
This trip gives you plenty of time for walks, the pub or simply to sit and unwind, especially if you go Monday-Friday.
Intermediate route: Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and return - 20 miles, 34 locks, 16 hours
A stress-relieving stay in the Calder Valley, visiting Todmorden, home of Incredible Edible.
Follow the route above to the Stubbing Wharf. Go on up the valley, its sides closing in with crags and trees, and views of the moors high above. A stream runs alongside, and the locks are set among woods or stone cottages. The Pennine Way crosses at Callis. So to Todmorden, completely untouristy yet with much to enjoy: fine Victorian buildings, especially the Town Hall, a lively market and many places to eat and drink, all dominated by a curving railway viaduct. Along the towpath see improbably-placed fruit and veg, grown by public-spirited locals for anyone to take – Incredible Edible. Make your way back. This trip gives you plenty of time to explore the area - or just relax.
Active route: Wakefield and Return - 42 miles, 52 locks, 27 hours total
Travel down the tree-lined Calder Valley, culminating in a visit to the acclaimed Hepworth Wakefield.
Sail down the leafy Calder & Hebble Navigation to Elland, with two canalside pubs. At Brighouse, an interesting town with useful shops and good pubs and places to eat as well as the eponymous brass band, you leave the canal and drop down into the River Calder. Pass under a towering motorway viaduct, a reminder of the frantic world you left behind. The river winds on its timeless way, until you arrive at Mirfield with useful shops and a choice of pubs. Continue through wide river sections and narrow cuttings to Wakefield, finding good moorings just by the celebrated Hepworth Wakefield gallery, and not too far from the bright lights. Return the way you came, and take a bus from Broad Cut to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see works by Henry Moore and an ever-changing array of others.
Weekly Route Suggestions:
Relaxed route: Shepley Bridge and Return - 22 miles, 32 locks, 16 hours total
Leaving our historic canal basin, go down the Calder Valley through the woods to Brighouse. Good shopping, including a Sainsbury's with its own moorings, plentiful pubs and time to relax. Then join the River Calder as it winds gently through the woods, alternating with straighter canal sections, and carry on as the valley broadens out, through Mirfield (proper shops including an ironmongers, and one of three Navigation pubs on this waterway) to Shepley Bridge, where interesting buildings surround an old, fully working, dry dock. Finally, make your way back to base.
Intermediate route: Stanley Ferry and Return - 48 miles, 54 locks, 30 hours total
Go down through Brighouse and Mirfield to Wakefield (see above). You soon reach Fall Ing Lock, the last on the Calder & Hebble Navigation. Now you join the Aire & Calder Navigation, impressively on an altogether grander scale, which leads you to Stanley Ferry. Here are two aqueducts, old and new; and also the Canal & River Trust workshops which make all the broad lock gates for the whole system. Oh, and a very popular pub.
Active route: Selby and Return - 96 miles, 68 locks, 40 hours total
Cruise meandering rivers to Selby with its interesting Abbey and market.
Take the route above to Stanley Ferry, then go on to Castleford, a Roman river crossing (you can buy stoneground flour at the café in Queen’s Mill), and keep on the main line of the Aire & Calder Navigation towards Knottingley. At Bank Dole you leave the main line and its electric locks, to drop into the Aire as it winds through farmland, stopping occasionally at pretty brick-built villages. And so to Selby, where you can discover the ancient Abbey and market.
Fortnight Route Suggestions:
Relaxed route: Selby and Return - 96 miles, 68 locks, 40 hours total
Enjoy the Calder and Aire Valleys.
Travel down the Calder & Hebble Navigation to Wakefield, and take time to visit the Hepworth. Then on to Stanley Ferry and down the Wakefield Dyke (properly 'Branch') of the Aire & Calder Navigation to join its main line at Castleford. Stop to see the curving Millennium Bridge across the river, and visit the flour mill museum. Keep on through Ferrybridge, where so much coal used to come by boats to feed the mighty power stations. At Bank Dole, turn onto the winding River Aire, lost in the countryside, before joining the Selby Canal which runs almost straight, through pretty brick-built villages, to its terminal basin not far from the town centre, market and Abbey. Taking your time in two weeks, you can see more - for example, from Selby you can take a train for a day out in York. Don't miss the Yorkshire Mining Museum (a bus ride from Horbury Bridge).
Intermediate route: Selby, Goole and Return - 128 miles, 74 locks, 58 hours total
As well as going to Selby, this takes you to Goole Docks, where you can enjoy a guided boat tour to see the ships.
After Knottingley (see above), the canal becomes astonishingly remote, with enormous skies stretching over the flat, rural landscape. Eventually you arrive in Goole, and moor near the Sobriety Project, a waterways museum run by and for people being helped to overcome challenges in their lives. Goole is a canal town, built from nothing by the Aire & Calder to make a port at the furthest inland point where ships could come up the tidal Aire, one of the three great rivers which combine to form the Humber Estuary. You can see many buildings from that period, and examples of the fixed and (astonishingly) floating cranes which lifted the Tom Puddings (square barges or 'pans') which brought coal in long snaking trains to be lifted into ships, for coastwise transport to the power stations of London. You are not allowed to take your boat into the docks, but hitch a lift on one of the museum's excellent guided boat trips. You may see ships unloading, and if you're lucky see one coming through Ocean Lock, or catch Exol Pride taking oil from the refineries at Immingham to Rotherham.
Active route: Sheffield and Return - 158 miles, 114 locks, 70 hours total
An amazing journey to an amazing city. Not an obvious holiday destination, but a fascinating canal journey through a rapidly rejuvenating area to the newly restored basin near the city centre. Enthusiasts enthuse; try it. Go almost to Goole (see above), then turn right onto the New Junction Canal, heading straight across a flat lanscape with enormous skies. Then turn again onto the South Yorkshire Navigation, still with huge electric locks. Finally you climb the older, smaller locks of the Tinsley Flight, and make your run into Sheffield Basin, where restored warehouses straddle the water, lit in strange colours at night. Take some time to explore the city centre.
Not so many locks, and many of them are electric, but still quite a long return journey.
