Back In Black

It had taken us eight days to get to the marina. The planned rendezvous with the boat club was scheduled for Saturday, twenty-first May, so we had eleven days to complete the circuit and would need to take our time.

The route would be similar to our journey back last autumn. We would pass through Atherstone to Fazeley Junction, turn onto the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal there and head up through Curdworth and then Birmingham via Aston and Farmer's Bridge Locks. Once we left there we would have a short run down the Worcester & Birmingham before turning onto the North Stratford Canal at King's Norton Junction. That would lead to Lapworth Locks and the Lapworth Link through to the Grand Union Canal at Kingswood Junction. From there it would be an hour or two to reach the planned bonfire site.

Freshly Shorn Alpacas Grazing

This first hop was only as far as Hartshill, about two miles. We moored up and the weather cleared while we had some lunch so we were able to get out and walk up past Oak Tree Farm, home to Harvey's Joinery & boat builders and Towpath Alpacas, with their freshly shorn herd grazing in the fields around the canal-side yard. We went up to Oldbury Camp, an Iron Age hillfort supposedly dating back to 800 BC, with a fantastic vantage point over the whole countryside to the south and east, before returning via Hartshill itself. It was a bit of a challenge for Archie at his age and he demanded to be carried some of the way but we managed a pleasant walk in the sunshine before the rain descended again at about six o'clock, so good timing for once.

We both had birthdays coming up in May. Mine was first and we decided to stop in Atherstone and have a night out. We elected to go through the first five locks of the eleven lock flight, which was probably just as well as there was no room on the moorings above the locks. We found plenty of space at the other end of town, which was nearest to The King's Head. We went to the big Co-op store by the station and after lunch we had a good walk around the town and up to the play area right back at the top for a training session with Archie. It turned out quite a disappointing place for eating out, which we had thought last time. We had assumed that was all about COVID but it seems it really is that limited. In the end we decided to go to the King's Head, which proved to be friendly enough, if a bit raucous, It had been recently refurbished and was quite busy but the steak was rather poor.

We were planning to move most days, so on Friday we set off down the next six locks and stopped at the service point beyond them. It was a fine enough day, even hot and sunny in the afternoon but with a strong wind. As we passed through the next bridge it almost blew us into the side of a moored boat, we may even have just kissed it and as we rounded a long bend, an oncoming boater was blown sufficiently off course to set us up for a head-on collision. Fortunately we were able to drop back and avoid it in time but it was a good reminder of the limitations to controlling one of these slab-sided monsters against the breeze.

The next place was ever expanding Polesworth and we picked up a lot of surface oil as we approached. We soon came upon the sad sight of the sunken "Wideawake" with a makeshift and ineffective containment barrier around it. Clearly someone hadn't been alert enough to prevent it sinking but it didn't seem to have only just happened and one might have thought CRT would have wanted to do more to contain the diesel spillage.

Not Wide Awake Enough

We pulled over for some lunch just beyond the town and then carried on a little further to a nice rural mooring at Pooley Country Park & Nature Reserve. A great place to explore, with fishing lakes and a ruined Benedictine priory and for Archie to have a real run. He seemed to love it and we were pleased that he seemed happy to stay close to us and showed no inclination to take off into the bush.

We were just short of Alvecote Marina with the Samuel Barlow pub overlooking the canal just beside it. Sadly, the Samuel Barlow, which used to be quite well-known and very popular, was closed down with no indication as to why or for how long. On the opposite side of the canal, here, is a Homefire fuel depot, where I had hoped to get some kindling and logs for the stove. They used to be open on a Saturday morning but today we found that they had shut at three o'clock and no longer opened on Saturdays at all.

With no reason to stop on Saturday morning we were at Glascote Locks within an hour and here found the first queue for locks we had encountered in a long time.

Queueing At Glascote Locks

There weren't that many boats queuing to go down but they were busy both ways and we ended up waiting about forty-five minutes, not too much of a chore on a warm, sunny morning and once started we were through both locks in about fifteen minutes.

Half an hour later we were round the slightly tricky, sharp left turn at Fazeley Junction and on the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. This is where, I think we have mentioned before, the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal Company lost patience with the Coventry Canal Company and finished their route for them by building the section from here through to the Trent & Mersey at Fradley Junction themselves.

We stopped on Saturday night in a nice isolated spot near Drayton Bassett. On our left, just over the hedge was a large area of disused gravel pits that now make up a couple of large nature reserves, which we thought we could explore in the afternoon. The sites were open to the public and well advertised but it was frustrating to find that there was no access to the site from the towpath except at a main entrance a long way down at the next bridge. I took Archie for a walk up to the village and back down to the canal but by the time we had followed a long path on the offside and knowing we wouldn't be able to get back out again, we ended up just walking back up the towpath. Pleasant enough but not the variety and range of wildlife we had anticipated.

The rain that came in overnight cleared by morning so Sunday's trip up to the top of Curdworth Locks was a nice run in slightly cooler, fresher air and we had completed all eleven locks in time for a late lunch.

Curdworth Locks

Just before the top lock we came across this sad specimen, which I am sure was near here last year.

Another Sad Sorry mess

It was moored squarely on the lock landing, although I am pretty sure it isn't waiting to go down. It had an enforcement notice on it and is probably in a worse state now than when it was first left. Of course, you don't really know the circumstances. Eventually, we have to assume, precious CRT funds will need to be spent in removing and disposing of it.

There is a proper visitor mooring in Curdworth, closer to the village but it sits in a deep, dank cutting and we have found that mooring at the top of the locks is much more open and pleasant and still only a ten minute walk from the White Horse.

We had heavy rain overnight. Hearing it start pounding again at seven thirty the next morning, we feared the worst but it stopped shortly afterward and after a grey, mild morning we had some good spells of sunshine from midday onwards, as well as a couple of very short, sharp showers. We got up through the three Minworth Locks, stopped briefly in the increasingly urban setting while Sue made a shopping trip to Lidl and rounded Salford Junction for the services at Cuckoo Wharf before two o'clock, passing "Rainbow Unicorn III", which we had last seen at Radford Lock on the way to Springwood Haven.

We have moored overnight here before but there was no real space for that today. In fact, a shed called "Watermill" was moored squarely on the one boat length service wharf (maximum stay thirty minutes) with no-one in attendance so we had to moor half alongside and run the hose across her stern. We had planned to move on anyway so as soon as we had completed our servicing we headed down the first three locks of the Aston flight. Half way to the fourth lock, Aston Cross Business Park has mooring rings available to tie up to. We hadn't stopped here before and found the rings were not well placed for our length of boat but we managed to get tied up against a very stiff wind at this point. We found the site more than made up for that minor inconvenience. It is a campus of various offices for companies like Uber and Boots as well as an outpost of the London School of Science & Technology. It has a gated entrance with 24 hour security as well as a convenience store and a café on site. It is clean, tidy, safe and very quiet out of office hours. The security guards are friendly and helpful and it is a great place to stop over in an area that generally feels rather run down and 'dodgy'.

Aston Business Park Water Feature

Tuesday morning was fine but windy with hot sun from about nine o'clock through to early afternoon. We had eight more locks on the Aston flight, once we had cleared some rubbish off the prop.

Birmingham's Bounty

There were thirteen more up Farmers Bridge locks, once we had stopped again and extracted the jogging bottoms that had entangled themselves and robbed us of all steering control as we arrived at the bottom.

However, we had great help from CRT volunteers on both flights and reached the top in about three hours. A convenient mooring was vacant right by the junction at the top of the flight and we were moored up by one o'clock. We found a place to give Archie a good run and then I went off to have a look at the latest changes in the centre of Birmingham. The time spent visiting here for work was mostly surrounded by dust, rubble and the sound of jackhammers but it is all really taking shape now. The shopping centre is pretty well known but the area above it, where the banking and legal professions seem to reside is quite surprising and now full of modern and expensive restaurants.

Birmingham - The Posh End

Sue had a hankering for Thai food so I scoped out Rosa's Thai Café, nine minutes walk away and we ordered a takeaway from there for the evening.

We had no reason to linger in the city so we moved on on Wednesday morning. This trip was a long one, for us, trying to get clear of Birmingham's sprawling suburbs. It was cooler and windier today but still dry with a lot of sunshine so the trip was no chore, especially as we had no active locks to go through. We set out through Gas Street Basin and round the sharp right-hander, where the wind can really catch you out, onto the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, heading South West.

At Selly Oak there is a huge Sainsbury's and a retail park just behind it, which included Archie's favourite, a branch of Pets At Home. From past experience there is no mooring possible outside Sainsbury's, despite a very long, wide frontage onto the canal. Just through the bridge on the bend there, however, there were a handful of rings, sufficient to moor one boat, just five minutes walk away. If someone had already taken up residence there, of course, it would be a case of one of us just standing there holding the boat, while the other one went off to do the shopping. Today, not only was the space clear but we were delighted to see that a lot more mooring rings had been installed, so now several boats would be able to moor at that spot.

Fully re-supplied we carried on through the steadily re-gentrifying Bournville to King's Norton Junction, where we turned on to the Stratford Upon Avon Canal heading East and South East towards Lapworth. We passed through Brandwood Tunnel, stopped for water at Warstock, got through the automated lift bridge at Shirley and finally moored up, barely clear of a winding hole, the other side of Major's Green. We arrived at half past three in the afternoon. I managed to drop a fender, complete with a cleat to adjust it, into the cut and had a happy half hour probing the mud to retrieve it, while Sue rescued eight ducklings that had managed to get themselves separated from Mum and trapped between the bank and the side of the boat. As we settled back for a cup of tea we heard our first cuckoo this year. We thought that was quite late but it certainly tried to make up for it by calling non-stop for the next couple of hours!

By contrast Thursday was a short hop, only an hour and a half to stop off at Hockley Heath. We found a decent mooring with a good phone signal and settled in before noon. We were beside a couple of houses  but they were behind a tall hedge and we had lots of sun on the solar panels and some open land on the opposite side so all was well.

A Pleasant Mooring . . .

That was until the landowner on the far side set to work. It turned out to be a Christmas tree farm and today's task was to clear out all the dead wood and brush arrange it in big piles and set light to it, with accompanying plumes of smoke from each pile blowing straight towards us. For most of the afternoon, then, we needed to keep the windows closed to keep out the smoke which, in turn, was blotting out the sun.

. . . Smoked Out - Bad Timing

We needed a good signal because we had a Zoom session with Archie's trainer just after lunch. We managed that okay and then took Archie out for a walk. A lot of the footpaths were badly overgrown. They were not a problem for us but made it very hard work for Archie's little legs and at times I had to pick him up and carry him through patches of tall thistles. Still, by the time we got back the smoke had cleared and we could get some air into the boat again.

We have life jackets on board, although we seldom wear them. We will use them if we are on rivers in winter or on some tidal section and we certainly need to have them available. They inflate automatically, using compressed gas, when they come into contact with water. Coming across them this afternoon I realised that one of them had somehow been triggered, although I still don't really know how. The gas canister was expended and would need replacing and while investigating that I saw that both canisters were actually past their expiry date so had to order two replacements. Another item to add to the list of things that need to be checked infrequently but regularly.

Friday was Sue's turn for a birthday and she took full advantage with a long lie-in. The weather was grey, with occasional spitting rain and quite cool so we weren't in a hurry. When we did get going we met with a stream of hire boats heading our way, so we guessed it must be changeover day at Tardebigge. We needed diesel and other services so, after the first lift bridge, we stopped at Swallow Cruisers, always a helpful, friendly guy. There is one more lift bridge beyond there and then you are into nineteen locks down to the Lapworth basin and the link to the Grand Union.

As we reached the locks the sun started to come out and we had a reasonable passage down as far as Lock 13 and Briar Cottage, where we have left the boat moored a couple of times in the past. The next lock beyond there opens into a longer pound with forty-eight hour mooring beside the Boot Inn. We had booked a table for dinner there to celebrate Sue's birthday so weren't going any farther today. Just as well! After we had moored up we learned that Lock 17 had just failed, with one of the balance beams snapped clean through at the joint. We had a walk around Lapworth and the locks after lunch and found CRT working on it with makeshift steel braces and a lot of angle grinding. They said they were confident they would have it open by tomorrow and in fact, it was back in operation by five o'clock.

With a dog in the party we had only been able to book a table in the marquee, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. In fact, it was really very comfortable. A very large space with plush chairs and heating, when required, and very busy. It was hard to tell, from the inside, that it was a temporary structure rather than a formal extension or annexe. The meal was very good, if eye-wateringly expensive and we had a really nice evening.