Alas, because of my lack of progress this week much of the upcoming route is the same as last week's preview. From the Bingley Five Rise, the journey now proceeds on a lock-free 15-mile pound to the next set of six at Gargrave, just west of Skipton. There are no more water-wasting staircases though. From Bingley most of the locks are flights of singles grouped closely together.

Here, as the canal turns south-west from north-west, marking the most northerly point of the whole trip. Another nine locks and the summit level is reached, marked by the 1,640 yards of the Foulridge tunnel. Then it's all downhill, past Nelson and high on a massive embankment overlooking Burnley. A relatively easy passage brings the canal past Blackburn and Chorley to the daunting 21-lock flight at Wigan, which drops the canal by some 200ft to the small coal staithe known as Wigan Pier.

Though the canal was opened in 1816, it was not until 1846 that a navigable connection with the River Mersey was made at Stanley Dock. This gave a boost to the fortunes of the canal company which continued to attract commercial traffic until 1972 when the last delivery of coal was made to Westwood Power Station in Wigan.

All the wild splendour of the Pennines is over now and the modern megalopolis of Liverpool and Manchester, though of course they would hate to be described in the same breath, beckons. If time permits, I will also cruise down the Bridgewater Canal, which kicked of the eighteenth-century mania for the cut, and get as close to the Anderton Lift as possible, there being a breach in the Trent and Mersey canal, which it connects with the River Weaver, closing the through navigation until the end of June.

· Mike Holland is writing weekly online dispatches from his canal journey around England. Thanks to the wonders of wireless technology, you can email him at michael.holland4@btinternet.com.