Ocker Hill

We were last here in September 2013.  On that occasion we didn’t stop but this time we’re spending several days at the junction to have a good look around.  Another boater must have the same idea because they came down the Ryders Green Flight and moored in front of us.

The lady on board the boat told us she didn’t feel comfortable mooring anywhere between Pudding Green Junction and Ocker Hill.  Both boats will stay here the weekend with the idea of safety in numbers.

I walked up to the CRT depot on the junction to check the services (rubbish, elsan, toilet, water & pump out).

What concerned me were the upper floor windows.  Numerous “missile” strikes.  There are no bullet holes but those windows nearest the towpath have been on the receiving end of numerous rocks.  I assume this isn’t the first time its happened as the frames have safety glass in them.

One of the local dog walkers mentioned he was a boater and moored in the Ocker Hill arm.  He invited us to move Waiouru into the arm where we would be closer to the services.  I did walk down and have a look but it appears the moorings beside the services are now occupied by CRT working boats.

The laptop has been playing up for several months.  It started with the spacebar working intermittently and progressed to the ‘c b n’ keys.   Consequently I’ve been writing some very long sentences.  I thought I’d fixed the problem but it has returned.  Today the laptop was completely disassembled on the back bed.  I placed some paper packing underneath the motherboard as it seemed to have too much flex in it.  All the ribbon cable connectors were firmly pressed home with particular attention paid to the ribbon that runs from the keyboard to the motherboard.  After re-assembling the laptop it didn’t work!  That provided a bit of a fright.  It meant I thought Jan would be getting an expensive laptop for Christmas!   Tried the ON button a second time and it burst into life.  Moreover the key problem has disappeared …….. for the moment.

Another laugh

Tame Valley Junction and a cold start

We awoke to a cold day with the first signs of ice on the inside of one of the Houdini frames.  This tends to happen because we place an insulated foam bung in each of the portholes and the Houdini hatches.

It got even colder when we attempted to move off the mooring.  Something was around the prop causing a lot of drag.  Nothing for it but to strip down and place those lovely warm arms into the freezing water.  It felt like a tube was wound around the blades.  Some cutting with the bread knife assisted in its removal.  The water temperature had numbed my hands and I needed to be careful not to slice them with the knife.

At Gorse Farm Bridge there is an indentation in the western towpath side of the canal which we suspect is the remains of the entrance to the former Hampstead Colliery Canal Basin. Beyond it is one of those gauging islands where the south bound loaded boats from the basin would have been gauged to calculate their toll.

Chimney Bridge is rather interesting.  It is quite high and our initial thoughts were it was a railway bridge.  However a pedestrian was walking across it so it had to be a footbridge.  But why the wide piers?

As we cruised under it we realised the original spans had been replaced with reinforced concrete.  

 

There’s a road at either end so it can’t have originally been a railway bridge. 

At Rushall Junction we turned west towards Ocker Hill.  The busy M5 Motorway accompanied us for the first part of the journey before branching away and heading north.  The canal is on an embankment here whilst the M5 is on raised columns.

The old boatmen must have loved these long straight stretches but we find them boring. 

We passed over the River Tame as it heads north.

Things became interesting at the M5 Aqueduct.  This is the only aqueduct on the canal which isn’t original.  Waiouru drifted over the aqueduct whilst we took photos.

We’ve now been up that motorway a few times and have never seen a boat on the aqueduct.

One of those “we were there” photos

 

And on the southern side………

It then became a boring old slog in the rain down ‘pylon alley’ to Tame Valley Junction where we decided to stop and moor just before the last bridge.  Of course the rain stopped and the sun came out the moment the ropes were tied.

I did have a little chuckle at this next photo (seen on Facebook)

Nice day for a local walk

It seemed an opportune time to take a local walk to get a feel for the area.  After looking at Open Street Map I identified what appeared to be a suitable circuit.

The green line is the canal.  The starting point was our mooring high on the embankment overlooking Hampstead.  In the distance to the southwest was the BT Tower in the centre of Birmingham City.

It’s on the horizon in the half left of the above photo.   Still can’t see it?

If you can’t see it now then a visit to SpecSavers might be appropriate

The plan was to avoid residential areas which meant the route followed the River Tame upstream to the M5 Motorway.

Our route and the River Tame have been following each other since Fradley.  The Tame joins the River Trent near the National Memorial Arboretum. We’re going to be near it all the way into Birmingham.

Wikpedia states that the source of the Tame is in Oldbury, but on the OSM the river’s source is shown as being in Woodgate Valley Country Park southwest of Birmingham.

M – our current mooring location with the river parallel to the west

1 – furthest north the river extends

2 – we will cross it again near Ocker Hill

3 – it passes under the Old Main line and New Main Line near Balancing Lake

Start – the source of the river

The river feeds Forge Mill Lake in Sandwell and the area is a local nature reserve

The Tame continues on north passing under the busy M5 and M6 motorways before doing a ’U’ turn and heading back towards Birmingham. There was a significant amount of traffic noise around here, which probably isn’t surprising as the Tame Valley forms a natural transport corridor. 

The route bought me back to the canal near Rushall Junction.

Rushall Canal under the bridge

Looking back down the Tame Valley Canal. Waiouru is a couple of kilometres that way.

This is the view from Rushall Junction looking towards Ocker Hill.  The Tame Valley Canal was one of the later canals,constructed in 1844 to relieve pressure on the Farmer Flight.  Apparently the old boatmen liked it for its long straights and towpath either side.

My route took me up the Rushall Canal with the intention of crossing the canal at the first bridge.

Well that wasn’t going to happen so I had to keep walking away from the boat. Of course it always starts to rain when you’re at the furthest point.

Someone has been decorating the local trees for Christmas.

Two bridges later I found a path that would take me east. The Rushall Canal continues on with the bottom lock in the far distance

I was curious about these round fitting in the middle of the bitumen footpath.  Could they be solar powered lights?  There are too many to be survey points

The route took me across Red House Park

Off to the right was an obelisk on a ridgeline.  Curiosity got to me.  It’s a memorial to Princess Charlotte Augusta, (Charlotte Augusta of Wales). She was the daughter of King George IV.

Charlotte had a battle of wills with her father about who she would marry.  She won marrying Prince Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld but after 18 months of happy marriage died giving birth to a stillborn son.  Had she lived, Charlotte would have become Queen instead of Victoria.  The memorial was refurbished in 2008.

Early Christmas

Jan is getting rather reluctant to let me go to the supermarket on my own.  Actually sometimes things appear in the trolley which aren’t on the list.  “ A where did that come from?” moment occurred at the Lidl checkout.

Whilst this power drill screwdriver set has German writing all over it the point of manufacture is more likely China.  However the quality of the set is probably suitable for home handyman casual use.

Then a walk in the opposite direction led to Aldi and another couple of items not “on the list” entering the basket.  A set of plug cutters to make wooden plugs to cover recessed screw heads and some drill bits that have serrated shafts.  These can drill holes or the shaft used as a rasp.

I like shopping in supermarkets. 

Hamstead

Whilst walking to the nearby Lidl this morning we realised we’d moved from Perry Barr to Hamstead.  There’s also a Hamstead in Adelaide, South Australia, coincidence?

It was Jan who first noticed the unusual civic feature on the corner of Old Walsall and Hamstead Road.

So Hamstead is known for having a coal mine.   After some online searching it appears Hamstead Colliery was a ’late’ mine opening in 1878, well after the Tame Valley Canal opened (1844).  In order to reach the coal seam the mine had to be very deep.  At 2000ft it was the deepest coal mine in the world when opened.  The depth and significant water ingress posed major engineering challenges.  The mine operated until 1965 and at one point was producing 260,000 tons annually.  The colliery had its own internal railway which was connected to the main rail network at Hamstead station.  There was also a canal basin linked to the Tame Valley Canal.

Left arrow – location of the former canal basin.  Right arrow – our mooring

The feature in the top photo is a memorial to the 24 miners who, in 1908, were killed in the mine during an underground fire.

More information about Hamstead here.   

Exercising Flight

After three days on the mooring below Lock 10 we wanted to move.  Jan walked forward and prepared the first lock for Waiouru.  The boat was very slowly moved forward into the lock taking care not to snag her on that large white submerged object (looked suspiciously like a safe) under the bridge.

The first three locks were completed without any issues.  Actually whilst going through Lock 8 we noticed a boat coming up behind us. 

It’s a long pound between locks 8 and 7.  There’s also a bend in the canal which means there is no direct line of sight between the locks.  Visibility is further compounded by the M6 Motorway bridge.

This will be the fourth time we have passed under the M6 since departing the mooring at Star City and it’s not the last time we will see this particular motorway before leaving the greater Birmingham area.

Approaching Lock 7

There was a problem above the lock.  All the pounds were very low and the locks empty.  We had to walk up the flight to run just enough water down to enable us to move through each pound.  By the time this had been completed the boat behind had caught up.

Both boats then slowly made their way up the flight.  We stopped at the CRT services above the top lock to dispose of the rubbish and top up the water tank.  It’s been a week since we last filled the tank and it was now reading ¾ full (yes we do shower every day!). The water pressure wasn’t great taking 40 minutes to fill the tank. 

Meanwhile the crew of nb Sceptre pressed on. It’s a timeshare boat and they were out on their winter cruise.  Their immediate cruising route is the same as ours, but we are going to do it much slower.

This next part of the canal consists of two long straight cuttings and an embankment.  Spoil from the cuttings was obviously used to build the embankment.  In winter the cuttings are cold and damp so it didn’t surprise us to find the first cutting devoid of moored boats.  What did surprise us was this sign.

Why would CRT think anyone would want to pay for a winter mooring in such a miserable place?  If you look closely you can see the dates are for last year.

We continued on to find a mooring lose to Perry Aqueduct.  The shops aren’t too far away and we’re up high with good TV and internet coverage.  CRT’s vegetation contractors were just finishing cutting the grass as we arrived!

Four hours of engine time, but we haven’t actually moved very far.

Waterway Routes Map

Interesting church

A boat came up the lock behind us just on dusk.  The crew were intending to continue on up the flight in the dark until I mentioned the water problem.  Unlike us, they were working to a deadline needing to be at Norton Canes buy the end of today.  The crew did ask me if CRT had been notified about the low water level in the flight and I informed him we hadn’t done that.  From our perspective it’s not a problem we can’t resolve and as we’re not in a hurry I didn’t consider it sufficiently urgent to notify CRT on a weekend.

This morning the crew of the other boat informed me they had notified CRT and a crew was coming to help them up the flight.  Two other boats subsequently passed us going up the flight and this evening the water level in the pound we are moored in is quite high.  Hopefully we’ll have an easy run up the last10 locks tomorrow.

Lunch today was a buffet at The Boars Head.  The menu was a mixture of Indian, Chinese, Italian and English dishes.

It must have been a great meal as it’s been repeating on both of us all afternoon!  Dinner tonight will be very light.

I took advantage of the fine weather and went for another local walk.  An interesting church steeple caught my eye.

 

Then I realised there was no sign of a cross.  Slightly puzzling until I came to the sign further along.

A rather ornate chimney! 

I’d been wandering along looking at my surroundings but not paying much attention to the distance I covered.   It wasn’t until I noticed the mobile phone tower on the skyline behind me that I realised I’d walked well beyond the mooring.  It was whilst I was retracing my route that I noticed the stadium in the distance.  It appeared to be on the far side of the canal and I guessed it was another local football club.

Back at the boat I couldn’t find it on Google Earth.  Then I realised it wasn't on the other side of the canal.  It’s the Alexander Stadium, completed in 1976 and used for athletics.