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.