22nd June 2016. Burnley.

A short distance from our mooring there was a sign naming the hills we could see in the distance, including Pendle Hill, very nostalgic for Jo as she and her children had had wonderful holidays around there many years ago.

The beautiful Pendle Hill

And (for this short stretch anyway), the beautiful canal.

We made an early start on Wednesday morning, aiming to get 17 miles through Burnley that day. The implications of this sign contrasted rather with the lovely scenery.

As did the M65 motorway which ran alongside us for some distance and which we crossed over twice during the day. 

The day was, like yesterday, a mix of urban and rural; a bit of smart and a lot of run down; litter and debris in the canal alongside glorious moorland views. There were also some different things.

This group of ponies and their foals happily living together was a reminder of the very different lives their ancestors

would have had down the pits.

And goodness knows what this was.

We stopped on the long embankment above Burnley town centre and Jo went to explore. She found a  cliché: a generally grim environment with very friendly people. The older buildings in their soft coloured stone, often in some disrepair, are in sad contrast to loud and nasty modern edifices. Its places like this which give architects a bad name. After disentangling the boat from yet another shopping trolley we set off again. The canal leaves Burnley and skirts the edges of Nelson and Colne. There were no locks today, just a few swing bridges. Occasionally we had a glimpse of more lovely views to the west. We stopped at the bottom of the Barrowford lock with two other boats. The flight is currently being managed by CRT as one lock is being repaired and closed at 4pm, so we'll head up in the morning.  

Views over Barrowford to the west as we approached our mooring.