It’s a good job I got to the bus stop a bit early as the first bus of the day was early. I reched Preston around 06:10am and set off to walk across town to the Railway Station. The amount of rubbish lying in the streets was terrible but by the time I reached the Fishergate Lune Stree junction there was paper rubbish right across the road. The 06:54 York train left on time but I was only on it as far as Leeds. I was heading into commuting time so by the time I reached Hebden Bridge then Bradford it got quite full. I reached Leeds at 08:40am and set off to find the Leeds & Liverpool canal.

Leeds view above the basin

New and old.

I wasn’t sure of the best way so I turned left out of the station and wound my way round to a nice pedestrianised area of tall office blocks and an old wharf area that I think is the river. An interesting pedestrian bridge with a hoop supporting arch above was in the distance so I headed for that, crossed it and reached the canal towpath. I turned right and headed for Liverpool, but that’s not where I’m going. The canal’s total length is 127.25 miles but I didn’t see any ‘miles to Liverpool’ signs for quite a while. The interesting thing is that I last walked this length of canal on Sat 12 March 1977 with Charlie and I’ve brought a copy of the relevant part of the diary with me. I commented then that the canal was clear enough to see the bottom. That certainly wasn’t the case now. It was filthy.

Bridge 225 was interesting as there were lights on the top and a stone building to the right saying ‘Leeds Armley Mills’. Out in open country I noticed a wire pole on the opposite bank with flowers on it and what looked like messages like those appearing all over the place on roads where there has been a fatality. Perhaps the trend is spreading to all locations. Further on an old mill had been refurbished and looked very impressive. Then I reached the view of Kirkstall Abbey which I wrote about in my 1977 diary. I stopped for a while by the locks to look at the abbey across the same ploughed field. The whole of the towpath was in excellent condition and was stoned over most of its length.

Nicely refurbished mill

Crossing the River Aire

In 1977 I commented on the nice smell from Kirkstall Brewery but now I could smell nothing. Further along the canal I asked an old man who was out walking if knew of a brewery. He did but it was closed down many years ago and now is student accommodation. The locks I was passing were generally in 3’s and all going up. Many people were out walking, running and cycling along the towpath. My planned camp was on Baildon Moor so I had to leave the canal. Before Charlestown a path leaves the towpath and leads down to the right and across a footbridge over the river Aire. The green painted bridge was quite interesting and a sign on it said it was erected in 1889.

I reached the A6038 road, crossed it and headed up the hill and into Baildon. On the climb up to the main roundabout I passed a building on the right with a gateway and name plaques either side as a war memorial. At the roundabout I stopped for a short sit down by the stocks and had hoped to buy some bottled water but the only shop selling water only had small bottles. I pressed on to Bailon Moor. The traffic was quite heavy as I walked along the road and the lack of a footpath made the going uncomfortable as traffic whizzed by at high speed. Occasionally I was able to follow tracks through the grass which helped. I passed this place last Sunday and left a water depot hidden in the grass just in case I couldn’t get any in the town. My plan B paid off and I found the well hidden water containers using my GPS. I climbed a short way on to the moor to find a flat pitch and set up camp around 13:10.

Passing through Baildon