Winter waterway: a cosy off-season trip on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal | Boating holidays

The ice creaked against the boat’s hull, slabs of it spinning out of the way. We weren’t in the Arctic on a cruise ship but steering a narrowboat in northern England, almost the farthest north you can reach on the inland waterways. There was snow on the hills. The Leeds & Liverpool Canal, which climbs to 148 metres above sea level as it crosses the Pennines between the east and west coasts, had only recently thawed after a cold snap.

A canal holiday is usually thought of as a summer pastime: standing at the tiller in T-shirt and shorts, followed by evenings in canalside beer gardens. But the canals are quieter in the off season (from October to May), and it is unlikely you will find queues at locks or water points. The sparsity of boat traffic is also easier on the nerves if you’re new to steering a 30-tonne steel battering ram round bends, through narrow bridges and beside expensive moored boats. For the first time ever, I would be at the tiller of a wide-beam (11ft 5in-wide) boat.

The 127-mile-long Leeds & Liverpool canal was completed in 1816 and has 14ft-wide locks. Significant amounts of cargo, such as coal and limestone, could be carried by each vessel, which meant the canal remained financially viable until the early 1970s. Now those spacious lock dimensions accommodate larger-than-average holiday boats. Our main cabin was big enough to host a small country dance. We had a spacious open-plan kitchen-living room-diner with a two-seater sofa and huge armchair in front of the wood burner. There were two en suite bedrooms plus the sofa bed. Being able to offer such relative luxury (did I mention central heating?) had sealed the deal with three friends who joined me.

Heading west from the hire boat base at Silsden, it would be 11 miles before we reached our first lock, but this didn’t mean the crew could relax: there were 14 swing bridges to operate, three of them carrying roads. Pedestrians waited patiently, children smiling and waving. “We don’t see many boats on the move in winter,” said one parent in the pretty canalside village of Kildwick.

Our plan was to cruise to the summit level of the canal, near Barnoldswick (pronounced Barlick by the locals). The Nicholson Waterways Guide describes this stretch as “one of the more remote stretches and probably the most scenic”. It was a journey of just 20 miles and 15 locks one way. The website canalplan.uk estimates a journey time of 11.5 hours. There and back in a week would be a nice leisurely trip, cruising about three hours a day. But it was not to be.

On day three, we took more than an hour to cruise through two locks. They leaked badly. Several paddles were broken. It took the might of three of us – plus the boat in forward gear – to open the heavy gates. I phoned the Canal & River Trust (CRT) to report the problems. At this rate, ascending the next nine locks to a hoped-for picturesque rural mooring near the village of Bank Newton was looking overambitious for the day. When walkers on the towpath warned us that the pound (the stretch between locks) above the next lock was very low, it confirmed our change of plan. We would moor for the night here in Gargrave instead. With our newly free afternoon, we could hike some of the Pennine Way that crosses the canal and visit a local pub.

That evening, over pheasant curry and pints of Timothy Taylor in the Masons Arms, we learned that we were not the only ones to find the locks on this canal especially tricky. “It took me an hour to go through one on my way up from Leeds,” said fellow boater Anita Weedy, who lives on board her (solar-electric) narrowboat. “I had to ask passersby to help.”

The poor maintenance of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, specifically the reservoirs that keep it topped up, made headlines last year. One hire boat company, Pennine Cruisers, in operation for 60 years, has ceased its holiday hire business, blaming the CRT’s poor maintenance. “Customers were having to cut short their holidays when they got stuck because the CRT had padlocked locks due to water supply issues,” said director Zoe Venn. “The decision to stop hiring holiday boats isn’t one we’ve taken lightly, but we were having to give refunds all the time. We can’t get insurance to cover that.” The CRT says it is “raising funds to invest significant sums in the Leeds & Liverpool Canal … to ensure our canals get the care and maintenance they need.”

As for our fortunes, we now had more woes. A storm was forecast. We would lose at least a day’s cruising. Advice that Zoe had given came to mind: “Choose a direction, not a destination.” We had gone westwards, perhaps that was enough of an achievement? We abandoned plans to reach the summit level and turned round to slowly mosey back. Skipton had looked charming when we cruised through. We could spend time there. Descending locks was far quicker; under 10 minutes each. We meandered along the side of the Aire valley. Fields threaded with dry-stone walls rose up into a swirling mist. Soggy sheep grazed and stared as we passed. Hills like bruise-coloured waves rolled towards us through low cloud. There was none of the forecast winter sun but it was all still magical in its own way.

By cruising the canal, using locks and bridges, even if only a few, we were also doing a good deed. “Use it or lose it” has long been the ethos of the inland waterways. Decades ago, the pioneering author and co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association Tom Rolt cruised the canals with his colleagues to draw attention to their state of decay. Rolt cruised the length of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal in 1948 in one of the first holiday hire boats, a former wooden cargo boat named Ailsa Craig. In his autobiography, he mentions the “sensational” Bingley five-rise locks and “the long winding 17 miles through the Yorkshire countryside and the market town of Skipton to Gargrave bottom lock.” In our own small way, following in his wake, we liked to think we were continuing this tradition of “use it or lose it”. This hadn’t just been a holiday but a waterways protest of sorts.

We moored in Skipton for three nights to enjoy cafes, hikes in woods and dales and canalside pubs with real ale and folk music. It turns out that a wide-beam boat with a wood-burning stove makes for a unique holiday base. On our voyage back to Silsden, the winter sun did indeed shine brightly. By the time we moored up, we had cruised 23 miles and negotiated 28 movable swing-bridges and six locks in a week. The holiday was the journey, not the destination.

Paul Miles was a guest of silsdenboats.co.uk, one of few companies that hires boats year-round. A week for four on a wide beam in February costs from £1,300. The Canal & River Trust carries out scheduled maintenance in winter. Hire boat companies can advise whether your desired route is affected. Alternatively, consult canalrivertrust.org.uk