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: