BCN Explorer Cruise Day 3

Has summer finally arrived?  I hope so.  I spent a very pleasant half hour first thing this morning feeding this swan family while drinking my coffee outside for the first time this year. It's little things like this that make living on the boat such a pleasure.

We made another slight detour to the itinerary when we set off this morning.  We reversed back to the junction and headed up the Cannock Extension Canal.  It's only 1.5 miles and very straight, but is really beautiful and was well worth the detour. At the end, there are several boats moored on linear moorings.

Back on the mainline, we continued on to Brownhills where we stopped for a quick shopping trip into town. There's a large Tesco beside the canal which has obviously had a detrimental impact on the main shopping street as there are now lots of empty shops in between the charity shops.  There's also an Aldi and a Wilkinson's.

At Catshill Junction we turned up the Anglesey Branch.

Once again, this canal is beautiful and so under-used that the locals were amazed to see moving boats and 17 in one day was causing quite a stir.

At the end of the branch we moored in Anglesey Basin and went for a walk up to Chasewater. This is a canal feeder reservoir but is currently practically empty as they've recently been doing lots of improvement works to the dam. We've been told it will take about 2 years to re-fill.

Chasewater

Anglesey Basin

This mural was painted on the back of the Innovation Centre. It's a shame that bridge graffiti can't be as good.

It was so nice at Anglesey Basin that we would have liked to be able to stay longer and have made a note to return soon.

canal-side statue of a fisherman

It's been a very long day.  We still had another mile or so to go to reach the other boats who were mooring at a boat club for the night, but by 7.30 we'd had enough, so I phoned ahead to let them know what we were doing and we pulled in at the Manor House pub.  After dinner we were joined in the pub by a few of the male boaters who had brought their dogs out for a walk.

BCN Explorer Cruise Day 2

After dinner last night we joined the other cruise members in the Great Western pub in Sun Street.  It's a fantastic real ale pub serving Holdens ales.  The Black Country Mild was superb and at 10.00 the landlord came round with a plate full of black pudding, pork pie, pickles, beetroot, bread and cheese for every table, all for free. Wonderful!

This was the view of our moorings taken from the bridge on the way home.

We certainly weren't the first to leave this morning, but we weren't the last either, despite it taking 3/4 hour to top up the water tank in the BW yard, and by 9.30 we were under way.  We turned left at Horseley Fields Junction onto the Wyrley & Essington Canal, also known as the "Curly Wyrley" because it's quite twisty in places.  This canal is very under used and people actually stopped and stared at us as we passed and we were told a few times by locals that they hardly ever see any boats. That's a real shame as it's a beautiful canal, with a good mix of housing, including this duck house, and open common grazing land.

There's a distinct lack of wildlife however and we've seen very few water birds today.  One creature we did see though was this wily fox, cutting across someone's back garden.

The peace and quiet was shattered by the roar of the M6 which we heard long before we saw it.

This is the service block at Sneyd, complete with resident doves.

There are plenty of open views across the countryside

and we came across more of these tethered ponies on the open common grazing land.

Despite it not being used very much, it's a clean canal without too much weed, but we did see our first shopping trolley of the trip.  Let's hope we don't see anymore.

It's been a long day as it took us almost 6 hours to get to tonight's moorings beside the Fingerpost pub at Pelsall Common.

As soon as the boats started mooring up this pair of swans arrived with their 7 cygnets.

BCN Explorer Cruise Day 1

As requested, we set off early and were down the 6 locks of "The Crow" by 9.15.  Many thanks to Brian Holmes who helped us all by lock-wheeling (setting the next lock ready to speed things up).  Brian's a lovely chap with a wonderful sense of humour and is quite famous on the canals, some of you may know him from his days as a correspondent on Narrowboatworld.com

Today's itinerary was for us to cruise 9.5 miles back to Wolverhampton. This was backtracking the route we'd taken to Titford last week, so we decided to take a detour, it is an explorer cruise after all.  We turned right at Junction Bridge and went down Brades Locks onto the Gower Branch Canal.  These are a staircase of 2 locks followed by a single lock.

The bottom lock is right beside the Shri Venkateswara Hindu Temple.  There are high railings surrounding the temple and adjacent shrines so we couldn't get a very clear view, but what we did manage to see was quite spectacular.  If you're interested you can see more here

The Gower Branch is only about half a mile long and at the end we turned left onto the Birmingham Level Main line. After cruising through 2 fishing matches where the fishermen were quite amiable for a change, we arrived at Tipton to go up the 3 Factory Locks. Two young lads of about 10 years old were looking after a younger boy of about 5 and came to watch as we went into the bottom lock.  They looked a bit dodgy with their pasty faces and hoodies, but couldn't have been nicer.  They asked sensible questions and were quite chuffed when I let them push the top gate open.  The youngest boy, who was wearing his wellies on the wrong feet, thanked us for letting him help and then said he was going to sing us a special song for the boat, all about pirates.....priceless!

We rejoined the Wolverhampton Level and carried on through Coseley Tunnel which is very wide and has 2  towpaths through it. It's also very wet with lots of water dripping from the roof, so you need to wear a hat! At Deepfields Junction we decided to take another detour and turned right onto the Wednesbury Oak loop, following n.b.Upton, another member of the Explorer Cruise.

It's only about half a mile to the limit of navigation but it's a lovely half mile.  There were lots of Yellow Flag iris at the waters edge, apple trees in full blossom, bluebells and a huge lilac tree in full bloom.

We also saw several pairs of Little Grebes, which we've never seen anywhere else before.

There's a sign saying that the limit of navigation at weekends is this winding hole, however it also says that on weekdays you can go another mile to the BW yard at the end of the branch. As it's Sunday both boats decided not to risk it and we turned round here.  Upton let us turn first, presumably so we'd break up the weeds and make it easier for him.

It's very obvious that few boats come down here as the weed is extremely thick, however the weed cutter we have fitted on our prop shaft make short work of it. 

Rejoining the main line again, we carried on to Wolverhampton to join up with some of the cruisers who had already arrived and moored up. We're all double breasted up but it's no problem at all, I even managed to get the washing hung out when we arrived and it's dried in the afternoon sun.  All in all we've had a great first day and are looking forward to a social evening in the pub tonight.

Titford Rally

The weather's been pants again but we've had a great time at the BCNS (Birmingham Canal Navigation Society) rally at Titford Engine House. It's extremely well organised and before we were allowed out of the top lock of the Titford flight on Thursday we were "volunteered" for services over the weekend.  Roger's done a couple of stints as an evening security marshal and I did an hour cooking in the burger bar. It's been a good way of getting to know new people and we've made lots of new friends.  The BCNS have a novel, and very successful, way of raising funds.  They sell new, unworn pairs of jeans at £4 a pair.  Apparently these are samples (no labels inside) and no 2 pairs are alike.  I've bought 3 pairs and, judging by the queues for the changing room this afternoon, they seem to have been doing a roaring trade. The real ale bar continues to be well stocked and well frequented. Last night's entertainment was provided by a Ukelele band and tonight it's a band called Rainbow Road.

All boats attending the rally have been presented with a certificate and a rally plaque.

We've been told there are about 80 boats here but I haven't had time to count them myself.  If you ever get the chance I'd definitely recommend a visit.

Early tomorrow morning we'll be joining 16 other boats on the BCN Explorer cruise.  The cruise members have been given priority down the locks but we have to make an early start (most unusual for us) The rest of the boats due to leave later in the day are being allocated passage by rota to try and avoid hold-ups and maintain the water levels.

On to Oldbury

We set off this morning just after one of the dredger pans had come up the Wolverhampton 21.  I was intrigued as to where they were taking it and 4 miles later we caught up with it at Deepfields.  It's no wonder it costs so much to dredge the canal when they have to transport the spoil so far to unload it into skips.

Unfortunately, the fully laden pans lie very deep in the water and stir up all the oily sediment from the canal bed as they pass.  Once we got past Deepfields the water went back to being clear again.

It's been a good days cruising and the scenery has been very varied, from open green areas through to modern canal-side housing and more industrial sections.

There's plenty of wildlife to watch too. We've seen Canada Geese with goslings, swans with cygnets and the most coots I have ever seen before on any stretch of water.

We knew we'd almost reached our destination when we got to the M5 motorway.  The canal flows underneath it for a short while until we turned right up onto the Titford Canal and up the flight of 6 locks which is also known as "The Crow".

 As with the Wolverhampton 21, these locks are extremely well maintained and very easy to operate.

We're now moored with around 30 other boats ready for the Titford Rally which is on this weekend and are just about to go and help make sure the beer which has arrived is fit for drinking.  We've been invited to the beer tasting session.  Looks like it's going to be a good weekend!

Wolverhampton 21

We spoke to a guy the other day who'd just come down the Wolverhampton 21 and said it was an awful trip, so I was dreading it when we set off this morning.  I was expecting the lock flight to be really hard work with lots of rubbish in the water, but it was quite the opposite. It's one of the best looked after flights we've ever done.  All the lock paddles are extremely well greased and easy to do and the lock surrounds are well maintained.

The first few locks are still quite rural looking, several having been planted with cowslips.

Further up the flight industry starts to encroach on the canal but I was amazed that there was absolutely no litter either on the towpath or in the water.

In one of the pounds there were several coots nests. This mother was still cleaning the bits of egg shell off her newly hatched brood.

I've never seen coot chicks before.  They're quite ugly really.

This stone was built into the side of Lock 15.  I wonder how many boats have passed through the lock since 1861.

The locks might have been fairly easy but I was still glad when we got to the top.  It took us 3 hours 12 minutes and we only saw 4 boats coming down.  We would have done it dead on 3 hours but were stuck at one lock for 12 minutes waiting for a BW hopper and tug to come down 2 locks.  They're dredging the flight at the moment and the mud they're dredging up is horrible, very black and greasy looking.

lock cottages beside lock 1

We're now moored outside Broad St. Basin which is a BW yard with water and rubbish disposal.  These are secure moorings but there's no access point so we can't go off and explore the area.  When we arrived there were 2 other boats here and another 2 arrived later this evening, all ready to go down the locks tomorrow.