Skipping the barge at Skipton

I had always fancied the idea of a canal barge holiday. I pictured myself boating through the rural backwaters of Britain, seated on a rustic deckchair with my feet on the barge board and a bottle of local ale in my hand, waving serenely to passersby. So I embraced the idea of a canal barge trip around historic Skipton, in North West England, with great enthusiasm. It would be, I decided, a kind of barge-tasting mini-break.

The passengers eyed us smugly, even while they were turning a little blue with cold in the open topped boat

Despite it being high summer in England, a biting wind was blowing through this market town when we arrived with my children and a German friend’s offspring for the now much vaunted trip.

As we descended onto the towpath, I saw the Pennine Cruisers barge pulling out (www.penninecruisers.com, €3.50 for 30 minutes). Since the next one wasn’t for an hour-and-half, I leapt along the flagged path waving my arms maniacally and yelling at the driver.

He raised a serene hand in farewell as the barge headed off towards the quaint cobbled streets and medieval castle in the town centre. The passengers eyed us smugly, even while they were turning a little blue with cold in the open topped boat.

By this point, the children were complaining about being hungry, so we rounded the corner, looking for something that everyone would consent to eat. And right there, was a second barge company (www.canaltrips.co.uk, €8 adults, €4 children for 60 minutes).

They offered covered barges for warmth, a “hilarious” commentary by local comedian Dave Spikey and they were departing in five minutes. We stepped inside. My mother, who had suggested the whole trip, suddenly found something urgent that she needed to be doing and waved us off gaily.

The boat thrummed rheumatically by the dock while the recorded comedian massacred an imitation of an airline steward preparing for departure (the brochure promised rib-tickling humour... my ribs remained unmoved). At last, we pulled sluggishly away. Instead of heading into the centre of town, where all the interesting sights awaited, we went the opposite way.

The boat was low compared to the sides of the canal so it was actually difficult to see much at all, but as we chugged along, I could make out a set of dilapidated warehouses and some tired terraced housing before we emerged into the rather dull farmland of the sheep and stone wall variety. The children attempted to get a better view by standing on the steps to the door, but were shooed away by a staff member who looked hungover, depressed or both.

As interest levels waned and hunger levels waxed, the German contingent threatened rebellion. We placated them with packets of crisps from the ‘onboard bar’. My son, too young to be entirely jaded by the experience, trotted excitedly down to the front of the boat to look out of the windows that actually had a view, only to be impaled in conversation by an old lady who referred to him as “she” despite his furious rebuttals that he was in fact a boy (he was wearing blue cords and a Thomas T-shirt, but in fairness to the old dear, these were superimposed with a pair of fairy wings, a tutu, a Nepalese armband with long dangly chains and, the piece de resistance, a plastic silver tiara).

We retreated to the bathroom. This was about a metre square. Getting the cords down and the tutu up in that kind of space posed a major logistical challenge, but mercifully killed another five minutes of the now interminable trip.

We emerged to the highpoint of barging, which involved a sullen man jumping off the barge, opening a swing bridge, watching us pass through with glassy eyes and jumping back on again with a level of enthusiasm which suggested he’d considered jumping straight into the canal with lead weights on his feet.

A watery turning circle then appeared and we headed back. Of the return journey, I have little else to add except that it could not have ended quickly enough for either the staff or ourselves. My barge illusions were shattered, but at least it happened on an hour-long cruise instead of a miserable week’s holiday.

Now frozen as well as hungry, we continued the hunt for food, trying out a smart looking deli only to be told, stoutly, that they “did not do chips”.

And so, inevitably, we ended up in a wood panelled pub where children ate for free, they did a sterling plate of chips and gammon with pineapple and our offspring were allowed to sit like miniature bar flies on high stools, watching sport on TV. The Black Horse did us proud (High Street, +44 (0) 1756 792145)

In an attempt to rally from the disastrous canal incident, we headed down Skipton’s High Street to the imposing castle in the centre of town. Over 900 years old and first built to deter the Scots, it has a wonderful Tudor courtyard inside and is beautifully preserved down to the oyster shell decorations on the door frames (€7.50 including a tour sheet).

During the Civil War, the impregnable castle was the last Royalist stronghold in the North. It’s claimed that the inhabitants were reduced to hanging sheep fleeces over the castle wall to try to reduce the impact of cannonballs and drank water collected from the lead roof. The three-year-long siege eventually ended in peaceful surrender in 1645.

Now I don’t know about you, but I love a good castle with lots of bare stone rooms, echoing flagstone floors, vaulting high ceilings, little windy staircases and no interpretation. It frees me from the tyranny of feeling that I should be reading about King whoever-he-was in days of yore and remembering something of intellectual interest.

The children attempted to get a better view by standing on the steps to the door, but were shooed away by a staff member who looked hungover

Instead, we just ran through the rooms, hid in the fireplaces and lost half our party in the first five minutes. Every so often, a blond German head would appear in the sights of our arrowslit window and we would shoot them, before fleeing upwards into towers with staggering views of the Skipton countryside or down to the dungeons and privies.

So the day was saved and the beautiful town of Skipton allowed to hold up its head once more as a bona fide tourist attraction. Plus the German children learnt the words for ‘get off the steps’, ‘you have to sit down’, ‘mummy what are we doing here’ and ‘what a rip off’. Every cloud...