Lyra's Travels

 Doncaster Minster by night

Humber Princess eases into Mexborough Top Lock

Friday 23rd September

Yesterday I decided that I wanted the oil change pump which I had ordered from ebay and had delivered to our son in Leeds. Having a free bus pass I thought I might as well use it to get to Leeds and pick it up. It's all very well having free bus travel, but it does seem to take a long time. It was over 2 hours and one change to get to Leeds and then a further half hour on the bus in Leeds to get to Bramley. After an enjoyable after noon with Damon I grabbed the stuff I had come for and he ran me to the railway station as I had decided to get a train back to Doncaster, it would be easier.

They seem to have a strange way of doing things on the rails. There were two ways to get back. The fast train, and the slow train. The fast one was twice the price, so I picked the slow one. I was issued with two tickets, one as far as South Emsall and the other from there to Doncaster. It was a through journey with no changes, so why two tickets? It took about 40 minutes, so of course better than the bus. If the fast train was stopping at Doncaster anyway, why was it more expensive? I'll bet someone was paid a lot of money to work that solution out.

After a couple of lovely lazy days at Doncaster we decided to move on again. This morning we set off heading for Swinton. The journey ground to a halt almost straight away. Doncaster Lock refused to work so we had to call BW to sort it out. After about 45 minutes the man turned up and quickly sorted the problem and we were on our way. At Mexborough Top Lock we encountered one of the huge tankers that ply these waters and so had to wait while they cleared the lock before continuing. When we arrived at Waddington Lock BW had just started to carry out some work on the top gates so once again we had to wait while they did their thing.

Finally we were through, and have moored up at a quite spot just up stream from the lock for the night.