The source of the river project

Evan asked to take the wooden boat that we have to float, so off we went to Milhouses this week - the pond was a bit lack lustre as there was very little wind, and as Evan identified it needed a sail, which we didn't have.  We decided to take it on the river (not the fast flowing part, but the bit alongside the playpark)

Here we go.

Nice and steady, ready for a real whoosh.

With friends later on in the week they explored how a river forms using sand and water (after doing their own version of this in soil at the bottom of the garden)

Here is what happens when it floods!

Inspired by the vocabulary and interest in this I decided that we should investigate a local river, so we started by watching this video this afternoon.

I mentioned that we used to live near to the source of a local River, and that it too begins with the moorland.  I suggested that we could go on an exploration of it this afternoon, so we finished up our breadmaking and gathered our explorer bags, grabbers, fishing nets, wellies etc, local map and compass and headed up to Ringinglow to find the source of the Porterbrook.  Looking at the OS map we saw that the close footpath should meet up with the source so we set off to try that.  It was extremely muddy, as we have had a load of rain in the last week or so, but as we had our wellies this was planned for and absolutely fine.

This was the bit the map told us the source was, but, clearly, that is not it!

We followed this up, unfortunately it was blocked off by the fence, but we did get to follow it despite that, watching its busy journey towards us.  We kept going right the way up to near to the farmhouse you can see in the distance, where we believe the source is, under the ground of the field.  

This hole is the very first visible part of the river, as far as we could tell, as the field beyond this wall had no part of the river, it seems it had been piped underground.  A tinge of disappointment, but a later conversation when Pat returned home, settled our minds that really we probably had found the source.

Some lovely mushrooms on our journey.

This is beyond the road back where we started where a waterfall breaks the Porterbrooks neck (so to speak) 

The kids used the fishing nets we'd brought to see if they could catch anything, or at least feel the force of the river.

To the side of the path is more tributory of the river, coming directly off the moors.  This is always dripping, even when there hasn't been rain in ages.  It is my belief, but I would love to be corrected, that the water coming through is water filetered off the moors over a long time.  Here is Autumn collecting the water to helpfully place into the river manually, to save it the job!

Evan uses his new grabber to hold the bucket over the river to pick up foam.

More grabber / bucket action.

Having now explored the Upper course will continue this project no doubt with further trips to the Porterbrook to discover its delights on the middle and lower courses.  We'll be using this fabulous Wiki page as our guide I imagine... I'm looking forward to the Shephards Wheel. 

Looks like it is open at the weekends 10-4.  Must decide on a good day to go soon.

Here is a video of the Source of the Amazon, can't wait to show the kids.