2006: 2 - Andante's big adventure

I bought Andante early in 2005, from Mike - who gave me my first ever narrow boat steering lesson. It was February when we viewed the boat in Newbury, and so cold that the surveyor couldn't test the gas system because it was frozen.

Andante was to be my Huddersfield pied-a-cut, but because of closures on the Thames that year (to Mike's great disappointment) she had to make the journey there by lorry. Thus, following the end of my Huddersfield contract, and the purchase of Warrior, when the time came for Andante to leave Huddersfield this was my first and only opportunity for a proper trip on her (we'd previously made a brief foray which terminated at Brighouse, en route to Sowerby Bridge). 

More significantly, despite having been boating for a few years and having just purchased our third boat, this was our first experience of canal boating. So where better to start than the Huddersfield Narrow, with its 74 locks in 19 miles. Looking back, I think that perhaps at the time we didn't appreciate just quite what a momentous trip this was. We haven't crossed the Pennines by boat since, nor boated so far north.

We went through Standedge Tunnel, which we're unlikely ever to do again.