Leeds City Centre (2)

Here I am Rune

Distance 0 miles

Total 1280 Locks 70 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1795.7 miles

A ‘stand-still’ day today to enable us to check out Leeds City Centre (on the hottest day of the year!). Not wishing to undersell the place as it does have a thriving shopping centre, but once you’ve been around there, that is pretty much it. Unlike other cities we have passed through there is no elevated point to view the city (library in Birmingham, Cathedral in Liverpool) and not much in the way of signage to direct you to anywhere of interest. The high points seem to be the Town Hall/Art gallery and a statue of the Black Prince outside the Queens Hotel. Further afield is the Royal Armouries Museum but I don’t really have a lot of interest in that.

Leeds Town Hall & Art Gallery

Black Prince Statue

 One area that is a bit different (but doesn't lend itself to photography, is the small village that they seem to have build under the railway arches below the railway station. From our mooring we can enter this dark realm about 50 metres away and then re-emerge right by the railway station having seen little daylight all the way (and having crossed the river!). The bit crossing the river is interesting and I would think quite noisy when the river ever goes into flood.

Tomorrow we press on down the River Aire towards Castleford, my original plan being to moor outside of Lemonroyd Marina until I took a look at Google Earth and realised we’d be only 200 yards from a fairly big sewage works!(odd place to build a marina!!). In light of that info we will probably moor somewhere near Woodlesford Lock or Swillington Bridge. I have just seen on the map that these locations are on the outskirts of Rothwell which I remember from back in my HGV driving days when we went to a safety course there.