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Liverpool & Leeds Canal - Burnley to Blackburn (★★★☆☆)

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Today we are walking the Liverpool & Leeds Canal from Burnley round to Blackburn, having walked from Gargrave to Burnley on the previous day. This section of the canal is fairly urban, and it does spend a long time running parallel to the M65 - and so I'm not entirely sure what to expect from this section of the canal, but heading out from Burnley things get off to a good start. Although it is pretty windy today, it is a nice walk out along Burnley Embankment - which is a raised section of canal running in a straight line across town. Burnley Embankment This embankment is one of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways - although with this list dating back to 1946, there have been suggestions of replacing some of those on the list with more modern wonders (and I suspect this would be a prime candidate to be replaced). But the embankment was built between 1796 and 1801, and was put in to avoid having to install lock flights at either end of the Calder valley  - with the embankment a...
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Liverpool & Leeds Canal - Gargrave to Burnley (★★★★☆)

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Today we are back walking the Liverpool & Leeds Canal  - and today will be walking from Gargrave to Burnley, via Colne - and the following day we will continue on to Blackburn, before heading home. Gargrave itself sits just below the Yorkshire Dales, and is a charming small town that sits in rural countryside.  And by this point, this is my third visit, having previously come to walk the Liverpool & Leeds Canal from Gargrave to Keighley , and the Pennine Way  from  Hebden Bridge to Gargrave , and from  Gargrave to Horton-in-Ribblesdale . Gargrave also sits in the centre of what is thought to be the very best of the Liverpool & Leeds Canal  - the stretch between Colne and Skipton. Although I personally do also have a soft spot for the area around Bingley and Saltaire. This suggests a good start to our day - but after heading past Colne, I'm not entirely sure what to expect as we continue on down the canal. One of the things about ...
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Huddersfield Narrow Canal - Harrogate to Stalybridge (★★★★★)

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Today I am walking the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. I had previously walked a short stretch of this canal between Stalybridge and Ashton-under-Lyne, where this canal merges into the Ashton and Peak Forest Canals - as part of a walk along the Peak Forest Canal to one of it's termini at Whaley Bridge . And since we are still in that phase of the year where it is very soggy underfoot, it is an easy choice to be back walking another canal , with a bit of a guarantee that it won't be too bad underfoot (at least on the sections alongside the canal). Today we are starting out at Huddersfield, and from here we will walk along to Marsden - which is a very popular walking route - where we will take on the less commonly walked section, which heads over the top of the Standedge Tunnel, before re-joining the canal at Diggle. We will then return to following the canal until we reach Stalybridge. The Huddersfield Narrow Canalcanal is one of three trans-Pennine canals which each take on very tri...
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