Drought?

We've been told that there is a drought in some parts of the UK at the moment, but we find that hard to believe!!! This was the view from our window yesterday morning of the signpost at Great Haywood Junction where we had moored up overnight.

Great Haywood very close to Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire.

Just before we arrived at Great Haywood we sailed across what felt to be a lake. Apparently when the Staffordshire and Worcestershire was built a very rich local landowner insisted the the canal should not spoil the view from his property and preferred it to look like a lake in his grounds. So Tixall Wide was formed. The house no longer exists but the granduer of it can be judged by the gatehouse, the only evidence left standing.

Gatehouse at Tixall Wide.

The previous day was a day that we didn't cruise too far due to this drought we are all experiencing. We had had to spend two nights in Penkridge due to bad weather, but Penkridge has a big market on a Wednesday and Anita and John were due to attend to sell liquorice from their mobile stall. We thought we could take the opportunity to see them again but on Wednesday morning Anita contacted us to tell us that it was too wet and windy. They had turned up early to find very few other traders and no punters. So to save their stock from the elements they shut up shop and went home. 

Later that day we had another guest. Hilary, who I had worked with on Dalzial & Pascoe a few years ago, has lived in the village all her life and now owns a little shop called 'Sew Many Things', just visible in the right of the photo below. Hilary is married to Grip Allan Hughes, who I have worked with and have known for many years. He is currently working in Scotland and wasn't able to join us.

Hilary brought us cakes and wine and we spent all afternoon chatting.

Sue and I ventured out the next morning to take a look at Penkridge and top up our provisions with local produce...and bumped into Hilary again.

Stocks outside the very small jail in Penkridge.

The weather was better so we set off but soon it got worse again. We pulled up by Tixall Lock for the night only to be awoken by the deep throb of the engine of an old work boat passing us at 7:00am. One of the many joys of canal boating.

Two days later we are again stationary due to the bad 'drought'. We pulled in last night behind two other boats and none of us are going anywhere today. It is too windy and extremely wet. Sue is cooking a Sunday Roast and the bottled Tempranillo (Rioja) is slipping down a treat.....must go now!

St George's Day

Our little contribution to St. George's Day.

Having passed through many locks again yesterday we decided to have a more relaxing day today but not until Sue had flown the flag(s).

Yesterday was quite an eventful day. We endured all combinations of weather:

and a row of blue and green mushrooms:

Why would you???

Even Tempranillo was frothing at the mouth after passing through 21 locks on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal:

As I have mentioned previously, The Midlands is not short of water and this froth is produced when the lock paddles are opened quickly and the power of the water forces its way rapidly into the lock. 

It also froths up the lock gates.

This canal was one of the first to be constructed in the 1700's by James Brindley who had a dream to form a 'Grand Cross' of waterways that would link industries to the centre of the country and allow easy movement of the wealth of minerals like coal, iron ore and limestone that were being mined in The Black Country at the time.

He built his first lock on the Staffs & Worcester at Compton to the West of Wolverhampton, which was the one and only lock we passed through today.

Compton Lock

A short part of Brindley's canal is only just wide enough for a single boat as the passage had to be cut, by hand in those days, through solid rock to avoid installing locks to go up over and down again.

Tight squeeze!

Today was very relaxing and enjoyable. Beautiful countryside, bendy canal (makes it more fun) and lovely sunny weather. What a pleasure life is when the sun shines. Though last night was pleasurable too as we had guests aboard. Sue had arranged to meet Cari and Anita along with Anita's Husband John who she got to know via Facebook. Anita and John are the parents of Ben, who was serving out in Afghanistan and Sue had sent him care parcels. 

BW......Brilliant Waterways!

Firstly I have to thank British Waterways in General, and Dave from Dudley in particular, for solving our no anti-vandal key problem. I phoned the regional British Waterways Office and was greeted by a very helpful young lady who listened to our plight and quickly put me through to the local BW office. Here I was greeted by another helpful female who said she would have to speak with her supervisor and he would call me back. Sure enough about 10 minutes later a very helpful male called but asked me in a very Birmingham accent how we had managed to get where we were without the said key. He didn't seem to believe me that we had got through Birmingham without one. But we had, as we did not encounter one lock that needed unlocking. Anyway he then said that he would send someone out to us with a key and it would cost the princely sum of £6.00. Deal, I said, and about half an hour later a very jolly BW employee, Dave from Dudley, was knocking on our door. He stopped a while for a chat and told us that the area we were in has more water than it knows what to do with and how it was being pumped south. Which was rather reassuring as we plan to be heading south in a couple of weeks or so.

The locks that needed the anti-vandal key

And here's Sue still smiling because this is only lock number 1.

She wasn't quite as enthusiastic by lock number 16.

As we passed through one of the locks in the Delph Flight a local informed us that the anti-vandal system was abused a while ago when someone sawed through the mechanism, opened the gates at both ends of the top lock and letting 2 miles of water gush "like a tsunami" causing lots of damage and flooding houses in the nearby village!

We also rescued a brick today. Yes a brick on a rope!!!

Brick Boy.

As we were passing through the flight and Sue was doing her best work, this person above asked if we could use our boat to unhitch his rope that he had got stuck in some trees on the opposite side of the canal. Being the kind hearted souls that we are we agreed, so I aimed the bow at the trees and Sue, boat hook in hand, negotiated the branches and grabbed the end of his rope, only to discover it was tied to a brick!!! We think he was trying to retrieve a fisherman's float that someone had overstreched themselves whilst casting off and got it hooked up in the tree.

Onwards and downwards!

So back to the job in hand. 16 locks to go! This is the view of the Stourbridge Lock Flight that took us a big chunk of our day to travel. 

Between locks 12 and 13 we approached the old Redhouse Glassworks with the massive restored bottle kiln dominating the skyline. 

We dodged a few hailstorms and heavy showers before completing the flight but eventually turned sharp left onto the Stourbridge Town Arm only to pick up something black on our propeller.

Arm in the cold water via the grass box in the engine room I managed to untangle the offending item so we could continue on our way to the town of Stourbridge where we settled for the night. 

Not long after retiring we were kept awake by an hovering Police helicopter scanning its spotlight over the area we happened to be in. Quite exciting if not a little disconcerting. 

That day we had only travelled about 5 miles but passed through 24 locks...that's 48 lock gates opened and closed!

The next morning we woke up to clear blue skies and we felt we should explore the town. There was a model railway exhibition in the old buildings at the end of the canal arm with a wonderful fairground organ for accompaniment and we could not resist buying a small coal scuttle from the canal shop. 

It turned out that Stourbridge was celebrating an early St. George's Day with a band and procession through the town.

If we had been there 5 minutes earlier we would have caught the band at the head but here is the local brewer's dray bring up the rear of the procession.

Stourbridge's splendid clock.

We did a bit of shopping and headed back to Tempranillo for a cuppa in the sunshine. Then we set off back down the Town Arm and joined the main Stourbridge Canal again. This time we turned left, not wanting to go back up the locks of yesterday. We were hoping to travel as far as the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal but the weather closed in on us. Though not before we enjoyed a relaxing couple of miles of very pleasant countryside and wildlife.

Damp but relaxing.

Thanks again to Dave from Dudley and the local British Waterways team for getting us out of the pickle we found ourselves in at the beginning of the day. We hope we are now 'key-ed up' for any future eventuality.

Wet, wet and more wet.

Not quite the weather we were hoping for but we decided to set off anyway. Mid-morning we fuelled up and headed West even though the skies were decidedly grey but with the odd patch of blue.

Our plan was to travel along the Birmingham Level Main Line canal and head towards Dudley and Stourbridge, and onwards over the next couple of weeks or so. We passed through an area of heavy industry linked by this canal and constructed with the help of Thomas Telford, a leading industrial architect of the time. The original canal zig-zagged its way for 22.5 miles connecting all these industries, as this was the main transport system then. The old canal is still passable in many places but it was too slow and twisty and had locks so Telford was commissioned to straighten it and he created a shorter route of 15 miles without any locks at all. This was commercially much more efficient but had toll islands built in the centre so that the barges had to stop and pay to carry their goods by weight and content.

 A Toll Island

I can tell you the space each side is very tight and there are quite a few of them.

All was going well, apart from a couple of heavy downpours, not a problem to us of course, being the hardy boaters that we are, until we reached the outskirts of Dudley at Blowers Green and entered our first and only lock of the day. Disaster! It was locked. "It's a lock", I hear you say. Well yes, but they aren't usually locked. We discovered that all the locks in this area have 'anti-vandal' locks on them and need a special key. Did we have one? Did anyone tell us we needed one? Did our Waterways Bible inform us we needed one? 

Thanks to only the second boat we had seen on the move all day that had been following us for a couple of miles, we were able to get through the lock as he had the right key. However we are about to face 24 locks tomorrow without that special key. Might be a problem.

Come back and see how we got on.

By the way, we had a passenger today.

Industrial Birmingham

Back onboard, at long last. Having effectively been under 'house arrest' due to our trusty old car not being so 'trusty' after all. We are back afloat in Birmingham. Though it was a little chilly today, we were feeling withdrawal symptoms so took a quiet cruisette around the industrial centre of Birmingham. It is said that there are more miles of canal in Birmingham than in Venice. The Birmingham Canal Navigations (BNC) is a collection of branch lines, loops and private arms that were originally built to service the heavy industry in the 18th century.

Here we are negotiating the only and very narrow link in the Gas Street Basin. Up until 1815 this channel was non-existent. In its place was The Worcester Bar where all cargo had to be unloaded from the Grand Union Canal boats into Birmingham Canal Company Boats and a toll paid for the privilege.

Straight ahead is The Mail Box which houses many restaurants and bars that take advantage of the waterfront, as well as the BBC.

Here is a rare shot of Sue at the helm as we approach what appeared to be a barge graveyard. The way they are partly grounded shows how low the water levels currently are.

We must have passed 20 to 25 similar craft all empty and rusting. Something Tempranillo won't ever suffer from, being totally aluminium.

We hope later this week to begin our journey south. Please come back and see how we get along.

Approaching Birmingham

Continuing our cruising up The Grand Union Canal was working out to be really enjoyable due mainly to the weather being so wonderful. Cold in the mornings but by mid-day it was short sleeves and sun lotion. We also experienced something new. The canal was extremely quiet and we didn't pass another boat for miles but at one point, eerily the clean air of the open countryside started to smell of hot rubber! I checked the map and up ahead was the M42 which we were about to pass under. We were amazed that the smell of 'tyres on tarmac' overpowered the effect exhaust fumes that you would expect from a motorway. Especially as we were below the road. The smell got much stronger as we got closer and closer. 

Getting close to civilisation we entered the first of many single width locks at Solihull on the outskirts of Birmingham.

The reason we had Tempranillo built 7 feet wide was so that we can travel through Birmingham and beyond as all the canals in The Midlands are only wide enough to take narrow boats and not wide beams.

This is what Birmingham looks like if you approach it on the canal. I bit different to getting there by road. Very peaceful and no hold-ups. Very soon though it gets very narrow and claustrophobic, and an interestingly different angle on the city's architecture.

The locals are also quite friendly. At each lock passers by gave Sue a helping hand with the lock gates. Although not always when I had my camera at the ready!

Somehow we managed to be the lead of about 4 boats also heading for the centre of the city and most of the locks were in our favour. That means that the boat in the earlier photo heading away from the city had left all the locks full of water as it had come down the flight and we didn't have to wait for them to fill up. However some of the gates were not exactly watertight so Sue had give a little wind to the paddles to top-up a few of them.

As you can see it is quite a tight fit and not all the locks are lined up with eachother so this old work boat had to negotiate some difficult entrance moves as it was longer than us. 

Not far now until we reach our temporary mooring site in the heart of Birmingham.

Here is my very special 'number one' at the final lock in the city. It had been a hard day all round. Fortunately the weather had been very kind to us and we had covered quite a distance, but we were very glad to slide into a private mooring and get some rest. We found a very lovely Italian restaurant within walking distance (after we found out how to get out of the locked moorings) and enjoyed a well deserved meal and good bottle of wine. Surprisingly it wasn't Tempranillo!!!

By the way...Happy Easter to all our followers. As it happens it is just a year since Tempranillo's build was started and at that time she looked like this:

Locks, Locks and more Locks!

Day four and we are confronted with a massive staircase of locks. A total of 21 in all. We had moored overnight at the bottom of the first one and decided to wait for someone to come along so we could not only share the work, but also conserve water as it is becoming scarce. We were almost ready to leave when an old work boat passed us and entered the first lock. We gathered ourselves and cast off and caught him in the second lock. I can tell you that by lock 21 Sue, in particular was extremely pleased we did meet up with Nick in his old barge.

Look at all those locks!

It turned out that Nick was an Iraq veteran so Sue warmed to him straight away and they exchanged many stories including the delights of Camel Spiders. Thankfully I don't have any photos. We also picked up a few trick on how to work the locks more efficiently.

Index Board

Here is a quick explanation of everything to do with canals, should you ever need to know!

Near the top of Hatton Flight is Old Hatton Yard. A British Waterways preserved building with a vintage BW Van parked outside. Nick told us that BW pay for a gardener to water the plants and do a bit of weeding but don't do anything to preserve the van. Not even wash it! I could only see 4 plant pots!!!

We also went through yet another tunnel. Shrewley Tunnel, only 433 yards long. A long bridge really compared to our tunnel experiences so far, though we were followed by an old tub which was in a rush and so after exiting we pulled over to let it pass. We think the Captain and 1st Mate were probably a little inebriated as after overtaking they suddenly cut right across our bow making contact. No damage though, thanks to our rubber fenders.

Here is Sue still smiling after working the Hatton Flight.

and here are her hands at the end of the day. Bruised and battered.

We sailed away from Hatton Top Lock leaving Nick to eat his freshly cooked breakfast from the cafe there. He deserved it as he had worked so hard along with Sue to get us through the 21 locks. He must have walked miles that day because once both our boats were in a lock he would leave it to us to shut the paddles and wait for the lock to fill as he went to the next set of gates to open them so we could sail straight in.

We cruised on up the Grand Union Canal whilst he turned off up the Stratford Arm. It wasn't too long before we approached more locks at Knowle. The canal was very quiet and didn't see another boat for miles. Sue couldn't face winding another lock paddle that day, and who could blame her so we moored up for the night.

The next morning, as no other boat seemed to have the intention of proceeding through he locks, we decided to go it alone. These 7 locks at Knowle turned out to be the last double width locks that we would pass through before the narrow ones that approach Birmingham.

Knowle Lock 6

These were quite deep and we climbed a fair height then just as I pulled out of the top lock a terrifying noise came from the propeller. Due to the sound it made I thought we were about to lose it. I threw Sue a rope and she pulled Tempranillo to the bank and I then had to plunge my arm into the freezing cold water of the grass box to extract the offending piece of wood that caused the noise. Fortunately no damage was done and we were able to continue cruising.

The next challenge was to be the single width series of locks at Solihull as we approached the outskirts of Birmingham.