From Leeds the route heads north-west and the canal climbs steadily through a series of single locks and small staircases, where one chamber empties directly into the next, before hitting the Bingley Five Rise, a scary staircase flight which raises the cut some 60ft up the side of the Aire valley. As a counter to the swing bridges, one of the many joys of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal is that locks come in tight flights with long pounds, as the stretches of water between locks are called on the cut, So it is that the journey now proceeds peacefully and undemandingly to the next set of six at Gargrave, just west of Skipton.

Here, the canal turns south-west from north-west, marking the most northerly point of the whole trip. You can get north of Gargrave's latitude by taking the Yorkshire Ouse as far as Ripon but, delightful though it may be, it is still a dead end and you must turn round and come back the same way. When the connection between the Lancaster Canal and the River Ribble at Preston is made, boats could travel as far as Borwick well north of Lancaster, but not yet.

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.