Leeds City Centre to Kirkstall Abbey

A  walk along the towpath of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal today.

I had an appointment with my Health and Work Programme advisor this morning and so had to show up looking presentable...and I'd also been to the doctor's surgery to pick up my prescription and then waited at the chemist's for my tablets. I didn't need to be dressed as though I was attending an interview though, but I still needed to be reasonably smart; I certainly didn't want to be wearing my regular hiking gear. I didn't have time to go home and get changed so I wore clothes that I thought would be suitable for all of my activities during the day.

I travelled on the 11:26 train to Leeds and then headed for the tunnels and arches underneath the station which lead down to the river and then to the canal towpath.

The milestones I saw were facing in the wrong direction [maybe this is the way they do it on the canals - it's something I will have to research]. This photograph was taken with me facing towards Leeds City Centre, the direction from which I'd come.

I didn't go inside the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills but I briefly left the towpath to have a look at the accessible outdoor areas - there wasn't anything to see though.

Even more so than last week's riverside and towpath walk in Sheffield my route today was really quite rural in places.

I missed the turnoff for Kirkstall Abbey and had to turn back, I didn't notice a signpost at all. I asked a young woman for directions who I'd briefly spoken to earlier and was told to walk through an area managed by a conservation project; there was public access because there was a cafe that was open.

The best of the weather had passed by the time I reached the abbey, but it was still fine enough.

I didn't have to wait long for a bus going back to the city centre and although I had ten minutes to spare at the railway station I was getting frustrated on the bus. As we passed the Town Hall  a newly married couple were posing for photographs on the steps and the female driver stopped the bus so that she and probably some of the other women on the bus could wait for the bride to throw her bouquet over her shoulders. The traffic lights started off at red, then switched to green and we didn't move...they then went back to red again and I mentioned that I needed to catch a train and used a bit of humour, or maybe sarcasm, and said that 'it looks like one of us is colour blind.'

The weather was a lot nicer than I'd expected, so I'm glad I made the effort.