Autumn Cruise: Day 6

We had a lovely evening with Andy and Helen last night.  They picked us up from the bridge and we went to the Wolferstan Arms in the next village.  The food was good enough, but of course the company was exemplary!  We had a lot to catch up on.

This morning we set off at 8.30.  A corner in Amington marked the most northerly point of our cruise.  Just before Glascote Locks, Adrian jumped off the boat to get some milk from the Co-op; a boat was coming out of the top lock, so I went straight in.

A boat was also coming up the lower lock, so that was easy, and as we went down a boat arrived below.  Before Fazeley Junction, we made a brief stop to remove a load of reeds from the weedhatch.  We also discussed whether we have ever done the Curdworth Locks going up — and didn’t think we had; we’ve always come down them, heading away from Birmingham.  The turn at the junction onto the Birmingham And Fazeley was much tighter than I’d expected.  It confirmed our suspicion that we hadn’t done that particular turn before, and I was so busy making it that I didn’t take any photos.  However, a towpath walker said “you’ve done that before — well done”, and I didn’t argue with him!  Work to convert the mill at the junction into flats appears to have been completed; a boat was turning at the winding hole straight after the Coleshill Road Bridge, which confused me for a moment, and then it was through the Drayton Footbridge.

I’d forgotten how lovely the next section of canal is.  Once the road has veered off it’s quiet, surrounded by gravel pits, and very serene.  There are long straight sections, and after the final bridge before the locks I could see a boat ahead, arriving at the lock landing.  When we approached several minutes later, we could see it was a single hander, who was taking his time.  So we decided to moor up and have a walk around some of the lakes of the Kingsbury Water Park, to give him a head start.  We walked around two of the lakes, and popped into a couple of the hides to see what was about — which was mostly swans, Canada geese, and coots.  It’s still a rather lovely area though.

Back at the boat we had a rather early lunch — Adrian had checked the dates on the tins of soup in the cupboard, and found one with a best before of 2016, so we had that!  We set off up the locks at 12.15.  The bottom few are a good distance apart.  When we got to the fourth lock up, the single hander was there.  He looked in quite a bad way, puffing and blowing as he climbed up off the boat.  I closed the bottom gate for him, and he opened a top paddle.  His boat had a push tug, which is a little workshop for welding and cratch cover repairs.  But he said he’d recently been diagnosed with a lung condition, and this was his first set of lock, to see how he got on; he’d decided four was enough (which we were quite glad about).  As we left the same lock, a boat was coming towards us, so we could leave the gate open — but the steerer told us there was almost no water above the next lock.  When I got up there, a lady was just about to fill the lock for her boat coming down.  There was very little water, and I wondered about the wisdom of taking another lock full out of the pound — but she pointed out that if we went up, it was unlikely the two boats would be able to get past each other.  I said I’d go and run some more water down, as as I passed he husband on the boat I could see he was aground in the middle of the pound.  Pounds were low all the way up the flight, so I opened bottom and top paddles on all locks all the way up to number 2, where I waited.  The pound between lock 2 and lock 1 is about half a mile long, so I didn’t mind pinching its water.  I waited for about 20 minutes, then had a phone call from Adrian saying he’d come up the lock and was edging towards the next one.  I walked back down, closing paddles as I came.

Above the next lock, there are massive workings on both sides of the canal for HS2.

At least the next few locks are fairly close together, because more water needed to be run down.  I ended up walking up and down that part of the flight many times, but those pounds are also shorter, so quicker to fill.

The whole flight feels as though it’s on the edge of failure (which it actually did on Friday, while a paddle was repaired).  Several locks have a paddle out of action, and gates and cills leak like nobody’s business.  It’s no wonder the flight is short of water.  By the time we got there, even the pound between locks 2 and 1 was a bit low.  We eventually got to the top, having taken just a few minutes shy of three hours to do the 11 locks.  And we’d been warned that the levels above the flight were also pretty bad — down by about 8 inches I reckoned.  It meant that when we went through the diminutive Curdworth tunnel, I thought I was going to have to get off and push, it was such a struggle.

We were aiming for the moorings by Wiggins Hill Bridge.  We’ve previously stopped by the Cuttle Bridge Inn’s car park, where there have normally been loads of boats and spaces were at a premium.  Today however, there was no-one moored there.  We’ve also seen people moored the other side of the bridge, where the road is further away and there are fields over the towpath bridge — so we went through.  This proved to be a mistake, as the lack of water meant it was impossible to get the stern anywhere near the bank.  So we’ve moored with a moat round the boat, the stern several feet out.  We just hope the levels don’t drop any further.  We now have a chicken roasting in the oven.  For the past few days the gas has had the telltale smell that the bottle is running out, and sure enough it’s just run and and we’ve had to change it.  The bottle has lasted a year and a day.

11 miles, 13 locks.  (89 miles, 50 locks)

West Mids Meander: Day 17

We had a really nice evening with Helen and Andy last night.  We were collected at 5pm, had great food and great company, and were late back because we all watched Emma Raducanu winning the US Open tennis.  This morning, we set off at about 8.15, entering our first lock since Thursday.  Alongside the lock, on the clubhouse, the Longwood Boat Club has a couple of boards showing how long it will take to get to various places.

Most of the Rushall Locks were in our favour.  A couple of the pounds were low, but not too bad, and at lock six one of the bottom gates wouldn’t open fully.  By opening and closing the gate a few times, whatever was behind it moved enough so that we had enough room to get out of the lock.  Towards the bottom of the flight, a couple of CRT guys turned up to check the flight.  They knew about the gate at six, and the low pounds are routinely low, so they’re well aware of the problems on the flight.

Below the locks, some way off, there appeared to be a boat or two in the middle of the canal, but not getting any closer.  It turned out to be a pair of work boats, which seemed solidly in the middle not adrift, with just enough room to get past on the offside.

At the end of the Rushall Canal, we turned left onto the Tame Valley Canal.  The junction is really tight, and it’s a job to get round.  Shortly afterwards we met a boat going the other way — a significant event in these parts.  The A4041 bridge is having a lot of work done on it.  The next one is Chimney Bridge, a very tall bridge named because the pillars look like chimneys.

After that deep cutting there is a high embankment, with glimpses of the Birmingham skyline in the distance, and aqueducts high over roads.  When we got to the Perry Barr Locks, a CRT man was running some water down to refill empty pounds, and he asked us to wait a few minutes.  The delay was minimal, though, and we were soon on our way down.

The top seven locks in particular are quite pretty and are easy to work.  There were plenty of walkers, runners, and cyclists, and seeing a boat is clearly a novelty.  I even roped in some onlookers to open and close some gates.  At one lock I pulled a tyre out of the water, and a traffic cone which was stuck in the paddle recess.

Alongside, the Alexander Stadium is being rebuilt for next year’s Commonwealth Games, along with lots of other facilities.

We had time for lunch in the long pound between Locks 11 and 12.  At the bottom lock a dad and two children said they’d been waiting an hour for a boat to come along so they could see the lock in action.  Shortly after the lock, the canal passes underneath Spaghetti Junction — and coming from this direction you get the full experience, with something like eight different bits of road at different heights for about a quarter of a mile.

We then came to Salford Junction, where we joined the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, and finally left the duckweed behind.  Here the Saltley Cut of the Grand Union also joins.

Through Bromford and Minworth it began to rain, lightly at first and then more steadily.  We followed a hire boat down the three Minworth Locks, so they took a little more time than they might have done.  We stopped for the night at a place we’ve used before, just after Wiggins Hill Bridge.

12 miles, 25 locks.  (195 miles, 222 locks)

Going West: Day 20

The CBSO concert last night was excellent. The programme wasn't perhaps one we would have chosen, consisting of a presenter going through an A to Z, with short works or excerpts. But the players were brilliant, and Symphony Hall itself is a superb venue.

This morning a boat headed off to the locks at around 7am, just as we were getting up. It was the Drayton hire boat who'd been on the BCNS explorer cruise, and whom we followed up the Ryder's Green flight on Friday. We set off just before 8, slipping past Chance.

I had to fill the top lock, and all the others in the Farmer's Bridge flight. This is one of my favourite flights of urban locks, as there's so much of interest -- including locks under road bridges and buildings.

In spite of having to turn all 13 locks, we completed the flight in an hour and a quarter. I was setting the locks two ahead, so while the lock we were in was emptying, I'd walk down two locks and open a paddle, then on the way back up open the top gate of the next lock. With Adrian working the offside paddles, we had a good system going.

At Aston Junction, we headed off down Aston Locks. We think it must be ten years since we did this flight, when we did the Warwickshire ring on a hire boat. The last time we came down Farmer's Bridge we took the alternative route via the Ashted and Garrison locks, and the last time we went up Farmer's Bridge we'd come via Knowle, Camp Hill and Ashted. Anyway, we remembered very little -- but to be honest, there's not much that's very memorable. We caught up with the boat ahead at the bottom lock of the eleven.

Salford Junction is under the M6 at Spaghetti Junction -- although it's not nearly as dramatic arriving from this direction as it is when you come down the Tame Valley. Right under the motorway, where the Grand Union joins, there's a junction bridge and a finger post. A little while later, the canal passes underneath a warehouse.

The next section is fairly uninspiring, but there are lots of new car dealerships on the offside, which I'm sure weren't there when we last came this way. Below the first Minworth Lock we stopped on the water point to fill the tank, start a wash load, and have lunch. We then completed the other two locks and carried on to Wiggins Hill Bridge, where what used to be a restaurant has expanded into a hotel and pub. We're right on the end of the moorings, with the back half on piling, and the front half not. It was about 2.30 when we got here, so we could have carried on, but thought we'd probably done enough locks today.

9 miles, 27 locks. (252 miles, 221 locks)

 

June Cruise - Day Twelve

The quickest way to get to where we're going would have been to go down the lock flights at Farmer's Bridge and Aston.  But we like going to places we haven't been to before, and we're not short of time, so we decided to go the long way round, taking in the Tame Valley Canal.

We set off at 8am, following the trip boat out of the Oozells Street Loop.  It would be the only moving boat we saw all day.  We headed off up the New Main Line in the direction of Wolverhampton, travelling about five miles to Pudding Green Junction, where we turned right onto the Wednesbury Old Canal.  At the top of the Ryders Green Locks, this becomes the Walsall Canal.  Most of the lock were in our favour, and just like the time we came up them in 2008, there were BW guys out cutting the grass.  We were down the eight locks in good time, then made the short journey to the junction with the Tame Valley Canal, where we turned right.  This canal consists of long straight sections -- the Nicholson Guide calls it the dreariest section of the BCN, which I think is unfair.  It also says the the approach to Rushall Junction is awsome, but you can't have one without the other.  Awesome is a good word, though, as the location is where the M5 meets the M6.  So there's an aqueduct over one of the link motorways, and then the M6 elevated section is right alongside.  It's quite an experience, and well worth the three and a half miles of straighness to get there.

Past Rushall Junction (where the Rushall Canal goes off to the left), the Tame Valley alternates between cuttings and embankments.  Some of the bridges over the cuttings are extremely high, like Chimney Bridge, a footbridge held up by huge pillars which do look like chimneys.

The embankments incorporate several aqueducts, and there are great views of the Birmingham city skyline.  It was a familar view -- when I did my postgrad in Birmingham I lived in Great Barr and had that same view from my bedroom window.

When we got to Perry Barr Top Lock, the heavens opened and there was a very heavy shower which lasted a couple of locks.  The flight is very green and pleasant, and passes the Alexander Stadium where some athletics were in progress; we could hear the tannoy announcements of the winners.

At one of the locks, I spotted a frog (or toad?) which didn't seem to be enjoying the swirling waters as the lock filled.  He was grasping at the lock walls, but was no match for the force of the water.  Once I could reach, I fished him out on my windlass, where he sat and had a breather.  Then got off, turned around, and jumped straight back into the lock again.  By now the lock was ready to open, but I made sure Adrian didn't bring in Briar Rose until the frog was well out of the way.

We had a slight problem at Lock 11, where neither of the bottom gates would open properly.  One would only go to half way, and we tried all sorts of things: opening and closing it, poking around with the boat hook, pushing it with the boat.  Finally, after using our new shaft (which actually wasn't long enough to reach the bottom), it opened and we were free.

There's about a mile's gap before the final two locks, where there's a nice little lock cottage with warehouses looming over it.  Then the Tame Valley Canal comes to an end at Salford Junction, where the Birmingham and Fazeley and the Grand Union Canals come in.  The approach to the junction is underneath Spaghetti Junction, and is quite spectacular, in a brutalist concrete type of way.  If you've done the B&F route and enjoyed slipping quietly underneath the thundering traffic, then the Tame Valley version is like that to the power of ten.

Now we had a decision to make: turn onto the GU and spend the night on the Star City moorings (then have to reverse out in the morning), or carry on for at least two hours.  As it was 3.30, we decided to carry on.  The next section, through Bromford, Castle Vale, and Minworth is full of rubbish, a situation which wasn't helped by the water being at least four or five inches lower.  At times it was like a roller coaster, as we scraped over submerged horrors.  They were probably shopping trolleys or fridges, but the water was too black to see them.  At Minworth Top Lock, a police officer and a communtity support officer, both on bikes, were making inquiries about an attempted rape in the area last night.

We knew we needed to be beyond Minworth before finding a mooring for the night, but didn't really want to have to go down any of the Curdworth Locks.  So when we saw a collection of boats after Wiggingshill Road Bridge we joined them.  There's a fairly busy A road alongside, but it's a lovely sunny evening and we've found the satellite, so we have TV.

All in all, a great day.  We're really glad we went well out of our way to do the Tame Valley -- it's clearly an unfairly maligned canal, which we both enjoyed, with plenty of interest along the way.

20 miles, 24 locks.  (156 miles, 184 locks)