West Mids Meander: Day 14

This was a day which went wrong.  It had started ok — it had hammered down with rain in the night, but was dry if murky when we set off at 8am and went through the Waterfront development.  We were soon up Blower’s Green Lock, and moored on the services to fill with water, start a wash load, and empty the loo.  We then carried on to Netherton Junction where we turned right, to stay on the Dudley No 2 canal.  There were lots of boats moored up, getting ready for the Black Country Boating Festival this weekend.

The main feature is Gosty Hill Tunnel, which is narrow and although it starts tall enough has a low section in the middle.  I was quite pleased with a photo up the air shaft.

There are more photos of the tunnel is a post from six years ago when we last came down here.  We carried on to the end of navigation, where we took the narrow entrance to Hawne Basin.

The Coombeswood Canal Trust sells cheap diesel, partly to encourage boaters to come down here.  Today it was 65p — which is a bargain.  Retracing our steps, I was amazed to see another boat emerging from the tunnel.

I was even more surprised when I saw a boat approaching the far entrance — he had to wait for us to emerge.  Back at Netherton we turned right and went into the very different Netherton Tunnel: long, wide, and tall.

It took half an hour to go through.  At the far end is a nice row of cottages.

We wanted to finish today at Tipton, facing Wolverhampton, so the plan was to turn right at Dudley Port Junction onto the New Main Line, then right again at Albion Junction onto the Gower Branch, go up the Brades Locks, and then right again on the Old Main Line.  I got off to work the locks.

We went up the bottom lock, and then went on to the top two, which are a staircase pair.  I found that the top lock was completely empty — so empty that the bottom cill was exposed.

I started filling the top lock, and found that one of the middle paddles was so leaky that Adrian was finding it difficult to get the boat into the lock against the flow.  When he was finally in, the boat started rising immediately, even with no middle paddles raised.  Before long the two locks were on a level, and we made it into the top lock.  However, the leaky paddle meant it was impossible to make a level in the top lock.  However long we waited, the lock was always a few inches short — so we decided we’ve have to go back.  As we were going down the bottom lock of the staircase — backwards — the boat caught on the lower edge of the overspill and started to tilt, getting to quite an angle before slipping off and righting itself.  Things had come off many shelves, but miraculously the only breakage was the teapot lid.  It was all, frankly, quite traumatic.  Adrian then reversed along the pound into the bottom lock, at which point it started raining.  We then had the half mile of the Gower Branch to do in reverse.  This is quite time consuming, and half way along we picked up something on the prop which stopped the engine.  There was no option to go down the weedhatch.  It was still pouring with rain, as I removed plastic bags and a combat jacket.

We eventually made it back to the end of the branch at Albion Junction, and turned towards Tipton.  We checked the time as we passed Dudley Port Junction — it had taken two and a quarter hours to return to the same spot.  We eventually made it up onto the Wolverhampton level at Factory Locks.  Even there, there was a slight problem, as one of the anti-vandal locks was broken, with the lock on, meaning the bottom lock took ages to empty.

We turned right at Factory Junction, went past the moorings, turned around at Tipton Junction, and returned to the John the Lock moorings.  Once we had tied up (at gone 5.30 — very late for us — I checked the weed hatch again and got another significant haul of plastic bags off the prop.

16 miles, 8 locks.  (152 miles, 197 locks)