Moored somewhere near Warwick

Nick Norman (nb Telemacus) left a comment on our blog post about the library in Birmingham.  Apparently it was only opened very recently, which probably explains the crowds.  The thing I didn’t mention on the post was what can be found at the very top of the new library.  OK, there is a garden and great views of the city.  But inside they have rebuilt the original Birmingham City Library.

A rather clever idea!

We filled the water tank at the Camp Hill CRT facilities block before heading south down the Grand Union Canal.

The two boats under the blue tarpaulins to the left appear to be on the 24 hour moorings.  The boater was friendly and I suppose he should be located in a locked fenced compound with all the necessary facilities.  It looked like he even had free CRT electricity.  Jan had a chat and was told he had CRT permission to moor and had been there for three months.  Unfortunately it means the only decent vacant mooring is the water point.  However it’s not a particularly salubrious area so he’s welcome to the mooring!

I was rather disappointed with the long section of canal between Hay Mills and Catherine de Barnes.  It needs dredging and is full of rubbish which required me to go down the weed hatch.  I had anticipated a wide deep canal and got the reverse!   This part of the canal is mostly residential on both sides and after seeing all the litter when walking into Small Heath yesterday I should have anticipated the reality of the canal.  I don’t think we’ll use this route again, unless it gets dredged.

Jan noticed the derelict warehouse beside the canal and I mentioned it was probably “modern” as the veranda supports were made of concrete.  My guess is it was built around the turn of the 20th Century.

The canal improved from Catherine de Barnes and became more rural.  We found a good mooring spot for lunch sharing it with two other boats.

After several months of narrow locks we were both reminded how much additional work is required using wide locks.  There are five in the Knowle Flight and they were all against us.  I would go forward and set up the next lock whilst Jan stayed with Waiouru.  On my return, she would work the boat down to the next lock.

Fat boy fills the lock

Each paddle mechanism requires 25 turns and they are rather heavy until the 20th turn.  We’ve done this flight on two previous occasions but were fortunate to share the locks.  No such luck today!

We only used the paddles on one side of the lock but despite that they filled and emptied quite quickly.

Fortunately they were the only locks on todays cruising plan.  In contrast to the suburbs, the centre of Birmingham was interesting, but we like the countryside even more.  Whilst cruising Jan noticed another house she has added to our “I like” list.

Kingswood Junction came and went.  Last time we were on the Grand Union we turned right here and went up the Stratford on Avon Canal to King’s Norton Junction.  Today we carried straight on.

There must be hundreds of bridge holes on the network but when I saw this one I asked Jan to take a photo as there was a perfect reflection of the arch in the water.  Unfortunately by the time we had managed to get out the camera Waiouru was too close to the bridge.

Oh well… next time!

The countryside around here is rather attractive and Jan managed a couple of photos before we stopped for the day.

If I wasn’t feeling lazy tired, I’d probably airbrush out the powerlines from both photos!

So we are now moored somewhere just north of the Hatton Flight.  We have the dot in the sky and Freeview and are spoilt for choice.  For tonight’s dinner Jan Is cooking the last of the garlic sausages she purchased from the butcher in Audlem and for dessert she has made a pie from blackberries and apples foraged from the hedgerows.

Solid fruit….. none of this juice and jelly bought stuff!   And it was delicious <yum>

Three flights

Two possible routes were available to reach our planned destination of Warwick.  We could cruise via the Worcs & Birmingham and the Stratford on Avon Canals to Kingswood Junction which involves completing the 20 locks of the Lapworth flight immediately before Kingswood Junction.  The alternative route is via the Birmingham & Fazeley and Grand Union Canals.  This involves 30 locks, five of which are broad.  In the end we opted for the latter route.  Primarily because it would enable us to stop at the top of the Camp Hill flight and walk to the JR Footwear shop in Small Heath.  This is where Ray and Diane (nb Ferndale) purchased their Northwest Territory boots for winter boating.

The weather was slightly misty as we departed our mooring outside the NIA.  Morning joggers were out along with office workers using the towpath to get to work.  The was no sun which made it rather dull.

The first set of locks is the Farmers Bridge Flight (13 locks).  Immediately above the top lock is the old Tollhouse.

For much of the flight the locks were against us and then we met a CRT employee coming up the locks who informed Jan there were two boats going down the flight in front of us.  We had just passed the halfway point when a working boat appeared from the opposite direction.  I was confident the steerer would know what to do in the confined space between the two locks but apparently my confidence was misplaced because Jan started shouting “Stop!” The working boat had come too far out of the lock preventing me from slipping to port.  If I hadn’t stopped we would have had a head on collision.  Eventually everything got sorted and we managed to pass.

Yesterday I took a photo of the BT Tower from the top of the library.

Today I managed to take a quick photo from the opposite direction.

Thirteen locks done, we cruised past the Ashton Junction heading to the second set of locks, the Ashted Flight of 6.

Ashton Junction with the Ashted Locks straight ahead

The flight includes two tunnels, one of which is rather tight.  The tunnel roof slowly started to get lower and I didn’t notice it until a grinding sound could be heard.  It took several seconds for me to realise the sound was the top of the external mobile phone aerial dragging along the roof of the tunnel.  I pulled it lower but in doing so got my eyes splattered with brick grit.

Jan didn’t get much sleep last night and was quite tired so we settled into a locking routine where I would go forward to set up the next lock whilst she finished the lock and watched Waiouru. 

There is some extensive redevelopment being done on both sides of the canal.  Jan believes it’s an extension to Birmingham University.

New and old

There is a sharp left turn at Digbeth Junction. 

If you go straight ahead it’s a dead end in Typhoo Basin.  Immediately around the corner are a couple of stop locks that are usually open with an adjacent former loading bay covered by a dilapidated building.

Entering the stop locks

We arrived at the bottom of Camp Hill Locks (six locks) to find it in our favour only to see a lady appear at the far end of the lock and turn it against us! <Oh well… we’re not in a hurry!>  Jan walked up to the lock to help the lady by closing the top gate and then emptying the lock.  The lady then walked off leaving Jan to open both lower gates so their boat could exit the lock.  Jan then politely asked “Are you going to help me open the gates?”  The lady then returned and help.  Their boat exited the lock and the lady then proceeded to start closing the gate in my face.  <???????>  No…… It was not a hire boat!

It was well past lunch time when we reached the CRT facilities block at the top of the flight.  One boat was moored on the water point with his water tank overflowing and two other boats were moored on the opposite side.  We managed to half fit Waiouru onto the last piece of vacant wharf with her bow sticking out into the winding hole.  These are 24 hour moorings but I don’t think we’ll create any problems for the other two boats moored here because they told Jan they had been moored on the facilities for the last three months.

After lunch we walked a kilometre into Small Heath to visit JR Footwear.  This is where Ray and Diane (nb Ferndale) went to buy their Northwest Territory boaters leather boots.  Joneses luck for us.  They only had one pair of men’s size 7 boots with steel toecaps in stock!  The local Morrisons was just around the corner so we seized the opportunity to top up the pantry.  Opposite the supermarket was an interesting old building.

Above the main door are inscribed the words “Free Library”.  However after looking it up on wikipedia it’s now a mosque. Ray had mentioned in their blog that the area is very Islamic.  What he didn’t mention was the huge amount of litter.  The locals must like living on a rubbish dump!  It reminded me of my various trips to the Third World.

Attractive Birmingham

The rest day wasn’t that restful but certainly interesting.  First thing was the weekly Skype call back to dear old Mum in Perth, WA.  After that Jan headed off early intending to complete her retail therapy before lunch whilst I completed a few small maintenance tasks on Waiouru.  Jan returned having discovered most of the shops wouldn’t open until 11.00am (it was Sunday).  I made her a coffee and we were starting to relax when a voice called out from the non towpath side.  Jan opened the side hatch to see Nick and Jeff on nb Telemachus.  They have been two days ahead of us in our journey around the northern BCN this has let us know what we might expect to find.  Nick & Jeff live in Aberdeen but somehow manage to find the time to head south and do some cruising.  It was our first fleeting meeting and hopefully not our last.

Jeff & Nick

Just after noon we headed for the nearest pub (The Malthouse) for a Sunday roast.

The Malthouse

We both chose the roast beef which I must have found rather tasty because I cleaned the plate.  We then went for a walk around the centre of Birmingham.  Jan wanted to find a Marks & Spencer which we duly arrived at having used Google Maps.  There was a gold statue out the front.

The golden cowboy with Marks & Spencer in the background

We came upon a  second gold statue near Centenary Square.  Unlike the cowboy, these figures didn’t move!

Mathew Bolton, James Watt & William Murdoch

Jan noticed her car had been parked in a side street.  It fell to me to explain we might only be able to afford the polish rather than the car.

She will have to wait for that winning lotto ticket

A number of buildings captured out attention.  It was the decorative brickwork and “Hogswarts” architecture that attracted us to this one.

The name and entrance to this restaurant appeared somewhat exclusive. 

Some of the civic buildings also looked interesting

Jan and I parted company in Centenary Square.  She headed back to Waiouru whilst I wanted to explore the view from the library and then walk around the local towpath.  The library is reasonably modern and quite popular, although most of the visitors were (like me) going to the top storey for the view.

Birmingham Library

The exterior of the building appears to be clad in large circles

The queue for the lifts were very long and in a fit of enthusiasm I decided to take the stairs.  Nine flights later I was at the top where there were some panoramic views.

<blog writing paused here because were received an impromptu visit from a very well known boater and blog writer who owns the following boat>

Granny Buttons is now moored in front of Waiouru and we’ve just had an interesting chat with Andrew Denny.  Back to tonight’s post.

Of course my initial photo focus was on canals.

That’s the top of the Farmers Bridge Locks

Further to the left was Oozell Street Loop and the NIA

The NIA is the round white sponge cake and Waiouru is moored in the middle of the photo.

She is the last boat on the right.  If you can’t see her then the next photo is taken from the opposite direction with the library in the distance.

Sanity returned and I took the lift back to the ground floor before walking to Gas Street Basin for another canal ‘fix’.

Gas Street Basin with BW’s closed James Brindley pub in the background.  Why is it that every other business in the basin appears to be either surviving or thriving and the BW pub has failed?

Sherborne Wharf on the Oozell Street Loop of the BCN.  The apartment buildings overlooking the canal make it an attractive area.  One assumes the residents find the movement of boats below quite interesting.

The only ‘negative’ to this mooring are the local Trip Boats who speed past.

Are we there yet?

Question from Jan at the tail end of a long day cruising!

Not wanting to disturb the neighbours I bow hauled Waiouru to the water point at the top of the Rushall Flight of locks at Longwood Junction.  This is the first of the new stainless steel water point stands we have seen and I’m not very impressed.

I had difficulty unlocking the top padlock with our BW key and then discovered the bottom compartment also had to be unlocked to turn on the secondary tap.  The stand didn’t appear to be very robust and I suspect they will never have the life expectancy of the old cast iron stands.

We were warned by a local we might experience problems with some of the lock mitre gates not remaining open and it did happen twice.  Our remedy was to use one of the centrelines around the gate beams as shown in the following photo.

The photo is blurred but you can see the method.

The Rushall Branch was full of weed and not all that deep.  However there were a couple of compensations.  At <censored> lock on the offside there was an apple tree heavily laden and the towpath slide had numerous ripe elderberries. The canal was very quiet so we stopped and picked both.  The boat hook proved very useful when pulling some of the apples from the tree.

My stomach tells me elderberry and apple pie might be on the menu!

Cruising speed increased when we turned right onto the Tame Valley Canal.  Like the Rushall, it has some long straight sections.

Looking back to Rushall Junction

The first long section became a high embankment enabling us to look down into the valley on the port (left) side.

The River Tame and the M5 motorway are down there somewhere.  Ahead we could see an aqueduct.

There was no boating traffic so we stopped on it for a photo opportunity.

The M5 and M6 motorways.  We’ve used both and never realised the canal was so close.

The canal then moved from an embankment to a cutting.  Towards the end there was a very important bridge.

Eventually the canal terminated at Tame Valley Junction where we turned left onto the lower section of the Walsall Canal <YUK!>.  Shallow and filthy. It was a slow cruise at tick-over getting to Ryder Green Locks.  Waiouru rode over three submerged obstacles in the second pound which made me quite nervous.  The locks (all 8) were heavy and full of rubbish.  Jan couldn’t open the top gate as two large clumps of thick grass/reed were obstructing it.  She managed to enlist the help of a fat elderly man who used his boat pole to pull them away from the gate.

It was another slow slog until Pudding Green Junction was reached and we joined the BCN New Main Line.  Waiouru felt like it was pulling a parachute and I was eventually forced to go down the weed hatch and remove some rope from around the propeller.

After that we made reasonably good time passing under the aqueduct that carries the canal to the Engine Arm.

Two skeletal arches with a trough fixed between them.

On rounding a bend we saw another boat ahead of us that was actually moving (first in two days), however they turned off at the Soho Loop whilst we carried on to Ladywood Junction in the centre of Birmingham where we found a vacant 48 hour mooring.

It’s been a long day so tomorrow we’ll have a rest and Jan can look forward to a Sunday pub roast lunch.  We might even try some retail therapy!