I know there are canals everywhere and that between us Sarah and I can say we’ve done at least some walking, and in her case even sailing, along canals in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Holland and even a few others in England. But these days whenever one of us says “The Canal” to the other we know exactly which one we’re talking about.
“So imagine the sense of fulfilment and achievement the pair of us are feeling the day we’ve walked under our final canal bridge, are approaching the middle of Leeds and can see all our Leeds friends waiting to welcome us, Rob Greenland at the front them. Finally having had a reason to dig out the “Well done Sarah and Ronnie!” banner and all that bunting he’s had ready for ages. Waiting all that time for just this moment…”
Well you’ll have to imagine the scene because it never happened. And it’s not going to. But read on.
What we did
What did happen is that in all the walks listed below we really did walk almost all the way from Liverpool to Leeds. Stopping, in the end and as it’s turned out for good, once we’d walked down the Locks at Bingley and decided that was a suitably dramatic ending.
Most of the walks, from 1 to 12, took place between February and August 2017. And for a long time we thought we’d gone as far along The Canal as we’d ever want to, once we’d walked down from the Pennines into Gargrave that year. Until three summers later, during a slight easing of the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, we decided to walk some more. And got as far as Bingley in Walk 13, over 3 days.
Since when the question of “finishing” has come up between us occasionally. Finishing the final 16 miles into Leeds. But never with sufficient energy or enthusiasm to go and get it done. Because actually we think we have finished. We walked as far as we wanted to along that canal and then we stopped. Like you could, like anyone could. Starting from wherever you are. And finishing wherever you like.
So to help any would-be walkers, and to tell our own Canal story, there’s first of all a full list of links to all the walks we did between 2017 and 2021. Any one of which would be a good day out. Following the list there’s then a discussion Sarah and I had a few days ago, about our Canal walks and a time that, as you’ll see, we still remember with great fondness.
It was the best of times.
The walks
All from 2017, except No.13 from late summer 2020.
What we think now
What we mainly think is that this truly was the best of times. And late last week Sarah and I, having both looked back through all those walks and photographs at those same links, sat down to talk through what we think about it all now, several years later.
Beginning with the best bits
We both immediately thought about how much we loved Walks 3 and 4, as we left the orbit of Liverpool and emerged into Lancashire. Including finding the Rufford Branch of the canal a mile after Burscough. An offshoot not even on The Canal’s mainline, but eventually to become the most repeated of all of our canal walks. Our firm favourite.
Then moving on towards Wigan and still on Walk 4, there was that gorgeous bridge somewhere after Parbold that’s up at the top of the post here. Walks 5 and 6 were also gorgeous, especially in the springtime when we were walking them. Much later on Sarah also loved the “over-the-top“ Pennines Walks 11 and 12. Me less so, though I was as entertained as Sarah by the “dog agility“ training you can see towards the end of Walk 11. But mostly by then I was coming close to having had enough of canal walking altogether, at least for a while. Especially with it being done in the short time that we’d taken for those first 12 walks. All having happened between February and the beginning of August 2017. Over a thousand miles of travelling there and back to get those 12 walks, up to then, and 100 miles of Canal walked.
But we did what we did the way we did it. And looking back on it all now both recognised how much we’d loved our sense of “canal time” however exhausting the travelling to get back there was. The way each time we’d walk back onto The Canal, all the way along, we’d feel we were re-entering a special place, that was our place. Still is, every time either or both of us go back to The Canal, even these days.
Other good things? Well the whole way along was the fact that we felt like we were walking through a significant part of the industrial history of Northern England, because we were. Then there was the constant companionship of each other. We’d occasionally talked about maybe going on a pilgrimage together some day. Some sort of “El Camino”. This was it, across the North of England.
And some not so good things?
We agreed the worst bits were the arid, match-days only area by the Wigan football stadium, the main bit of The Canal we remembered as “bleak”. Also Walks 7 and 8 were “a bit bleak” at least until we got into Burnley. Which as you’ll see we really liked.
All along the way, also, we were both irritated by the poor quality of too many of the footpaths, sometimes for miles on end. Then there was the infrequency of benches, also the fact there are virtually no canal-side cafés (so take your own drinks and food, by the way).
But really not so much of a list of a list of things not liked, despite the bits of moaning you’ll see me doing during the walks themselves about lycra-clad bike riders, and the way the canal boat owners would colonise the banks like private space wherever they were parked up. Neither of these really bother me all that much, now we’re looking back objectively on a time that was considerably more than wonderful.
On stopping
Before finishing our conversation we returned, for one last time to the recurring question of “Will we do that last bit?”. And we’re both more definite than ever before that “No we won’t”. Life is too short, we think now, not to have other things we’d rather be doing with our time. And besides, the time when either of us might have been sufficiently driven to just “get the last bit done” is long in the past now. As Sarah says “The whole experience was hugely rewarding until it wasn’t. And then we stopped”.
Some final advice
First, and most obviously from all we’ve just said. Walk as much as you feel like, go only as far as you want and then stop. You really don’t have to make getting to the other end of The Canal one of those awful “100 things before to do before you die” follies.
And second, boots matter. Only some short sections of the canal bank are as tamed as city streets. Mostly they’re nowhere near that, and are often rough and uneven, sometimes also very muddy. So no trainers, especially white ones. Walk only in good boots. And if you haven’t got any, get some. And then have a lovely time.
Walking along The Canal might just turn out to be one of the times of your life. Like it was for us.
Sarah & Ronnie, August 2023