Sickle to Alvecote

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

Having got Chalice to Alvecote, all we now had to do was to retrieve Sickle from Grendon Dock, a bit to the South.  This should have been an even easier trip, but things do not always go to plan!

We had two choices.  Either we could boat down with Chalice, then bring both boats back to Alvecote, or I could take a bike, and cycle down, which, theoretically at least, should have been quicker.

Despite having a headache, I went for the bike option.  This was going OK, until I found I had a slow but significant puncture, but nothing to fix it with!  Fortunately I had a pump, and hoped I could keep going with occasional stops to reinflate.  However a good towpath surface quickly turned to a mixture of either rocky or muddy single-track!  By the time I had done the short trip to Grendon I was exhausted, and the rate of deflation was much higher!

Malcolm Burge at the tiller of Jaguar - one of his many Joshers.

I had been told that there might be nobody at Grendon, as Malcolm Burge was bringing Jaguar up to Alvecote.  As I had passed Malcolm and his son Drew whilst on the bike, (or possibly pumping up a tyre!), I wasn't surprised, but didn't expect a locked steel gate, with signs about loose dogs!  I rang Alvecote, who assured me I would not be savaged if I scaled the gate.

Having also hauled the bike over, I got Sickle ready to boat.  Or I thought I had!  Sickle normally starts almost immediately, but today, although the battery was initially turning the engine over well - nothing - nothing AT ALL!  More and more deperate attempts to start ensued, but I still saw no sign it was likely to.  After a while the battery was tiring, and I was having serious thoughts about getting Cath to bring Chalice down to tow Sickle back up to Alvecote!

However Malcolm Burge, the owner at Alvecote, turned up and we continued to try and start the misbehaving Lister.  Malcolm provided a battery charger, and was convinced it was close to starting - by now I was far less confident.  Phone calls were made to see if it had been run to get it out of the dock - it had, but it had been Sarah that moved it.  Her family had owned Sickle, and she had been a regular steerer, so should have known any foibles - she reported it had been fine - all very odd!  Eventually the engine stop switch was suspected, and found to probably not be fully returned to the correct position for "run".  Even doing this she still would not start at first - it seemed to have left some part fuel starved, but after a lot more cranking, she finally spluttered into life.

View from Chalice as I finally arrive with Sickle.

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, I handed back the battery charger, and set off somewhat late.  After that all behaved as it should, as I found myself in convoy with some of the Icebreakers and Tugs featured in the last post.  We were allocated a prime position right up nearest to the Samuel Barlow, so also nearest the beer!  As the pontoons filled up, and particularly as we finally got to get Sickle alongside her "twin" Tycho, it felt like a good event was in store.

Our first attempt at a vegetarian option in the Barlow showed just how good the resident chef is.  I also discovered a rather deceptively strong beer called fallen Angel, but am convinced that is not the reason I found everybody so welcoming and friendly.  We had not been to this modern pub before, but our first experiences were very positive.

Grendon Dock to Alvecote
Miles: 3.7, Locks:0
Total Miles: 405.5, Locks: 249 (Worked)

Chalice to Alvecote

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

Last of the Birmingham & Fazeley locks at Curdworth

Nothing complicated about the first part of today!

Yesterday's big push had left us with a relatively short trip, and only a very few locks still to go to get Chalice to Alvecote.

Once again there was steady traffic in both directions at the two Glascote locks, but none of the delays we have experienced here with queues in the past.  This summer really seems less busy generally than previous experiences.

The delightful "Baltic"

At Alvecote historic boats will be largely berthed within the marina itself, whereas non-historic ones will be along the towpath.  The towpath opposite the marina was already fairly full, with some boats already breasted up, but we reckoned we were better finding a quieter location beyond the next bridge southwards.  It made no difference to accessing the marina facilities and the Samuel Barlow pub, because either way you have a similar distance walk to a bridge which is the only way of crossing from the towpath side to the marina side.

The equally delightful, steam powered "Laplander"

"Tycho" - Sort of "Sickle with attitud

Also, mooring "Chalice" where we chose to placed ourselves, gave a good advanced viewing of further historic boats arriving for the event, with many of the arrivals being in the same "Icebreaker/Tug" category as our "Sickle"

Just Above Bottom Lock Curdworth to Alvecote
Miles: 7.0, Locks: 3
Total Miles: 401.8, Locks: 249 (Worked)

Lots of Locks

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

Heading off down Farmer's Bridge

Leaving Birmingham to head out on to the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal leaves you with "interesting" choices about how long you want your boating day to be.  Just the descent through the thirteen Farmers Bridge and eleven Aston flights means you have 24 locks before you have even covered three miles on the B&F - that's now a corrected statement after a comment received!

One of the more unusual locks in this flight.

The Birmingham and Fazeley doesn't exactly start off as a picturesque canal, and for much of the start of it you wouldn't particularly choose it as an overnight mooring, even if you ignored popular advice to get considerable distance along it to avoid any problems with the locals. In practice long before you reach the usually recommended first places to stop, it doesn't feel like you would have problems, but it is still far from attractive!

A massive railway bridges spans the flight

On the other hand, we know from previous trips, if you pass on right through Minworth, where the moorings are shallow and in a dark cutting, and on down the long Curdworth flight, then there are some really attractive places to stop.  Particularly appealing is the Kingsbury water park, but this means going virtually to the bottom of the Curdworth locks.  Canal planners estimate an exceedingly long day from Birmingham to Kingsbury, simply because there are 37 locks to navigate., but we thought we would make that something to aim at, but probably have to modify to a shorter distance, based on how the day unfolded

Post Office tower

When we got to the top of Farmer's Bridge locks it all looked pretty hopeless, particularly as a hire boat rounded Old Turn junction just  ahead of us, and then proceeded at a crawl pace up to the locks.  By now a queue was forming with a couple of boats going ahead of that, so when they ended up twice on the wrong side of the canal trying to access the lock, my hopes of a good day were fading, as once behind someone in these locks, you stay behind them all day, generally!

Building across end of lock apparently called the Bothy.

How wrong could I have been.  Two young children were despatched with windlasses to set the locks ahead, and whilst the steerer was not that confident, she proved easily up to the task of the straight run between most of the locks.  Meanwhile the man of the family was flogging himself to death rushing from paddle to paddle, and hopping between bottom gates.  Until the kids retired exhausted they proved to be efficient to the point that the boat ahead of them seemed to be starting to do things to deliberately hold them up.  Leaving gates open, and putting the anti-vandal locks back on the paddles is poor etiquette if you know someone is working hard behind you.  Nil points to the (very) shiny boat owners doing this, and all credit to the hire boaters for their spirit! (And yes, it was a Steve Hudson boat!....)

The tower fades into the background

Top of Aston locks.

Descending Aston locks.

Lock rebuilt at a new location because of a new motorway.

Eventually everybody else dropped out of the running, and we became lead boat.  After thinking at the start that we had little chance of completing a quite ambitious days boating we did so easily.  The canal planner had said well over eleven hours - we had actually done it in well under nine.

Dramatic change from the decrepit industry of earlier,

Birmingham to Just Above Bottom Lock Curdworth
Miles: 12.1, Locks: 37
Total Miles: 394.8, Locks: 246 (Worked)

A Non-Moving Day For A Change

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)
Highly unusually for us, we actually planned to stop somewhere for more than one night, so spent a full day in the Centre of Birmingham.

Three of us visited the sea life centre.......

By the afternoon only two felt like another shopping trip......


But by the evening, we all went to soak up the atmosphere of this lively environment, and to enjoy a great meal.

Birmingham

Miles:0, Locks:0
Total Miles: 382.7, Locks: 209 (Worked)

Into Birmingham - And Back to "Four Plus Dog"

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

On the Old Main Line - M5 completely covers the canal here.

One of the things about travelling around the Birmingham Canal Navigations is that there is often a choice of routes.  Specifically for part of the journey from Wolverhampton into Birmingham there are two canals - the Old Main Line, and the subsequently built New Main Line, which takes a more direct route, and is in a cutting about 20 feet deeper than the original.  These two lines are connected together both at the ends, but also at two points in the middle, by short flights of three locks, and there are therefore 4 different ways of getting from one level to the other.

Strange juxtaposition of old bridge and modern motorway.

The Black Country Museum is on the upper Wolverhampton level , whereas Birmingham centre is on the lower level, so we needed to use one of the four sets of locks between the two.  Personally I'm no great fan of the New Main Line, which is wide, but largely straight and featureless.  Rather more interesting is the longer, winding, Old Main Line, although much of it can't exactly be described as picturesque.

These "tunnels" are not old, dating only from covering the canal here the 1970s

We set off on the Old Line, expecting to turn off at Brades Junction through the Brades Locks and down the interconnecting Gower Branch to the New Main Line.  This has the interest that the top two Brades locks are a paired staircase, sharing a gate between the two - the only staircase lock on the whole BCN.  Also there is a very low bridge at the foot of these locks, if the water is at its correct level, (which it was not the last time we went under!).  However on reaching Brades a hire boat was turning into these locks, so we decided not to wait whilst they worked out what to do, and possibly deal with the debris that can accumulate there.

"Thaxted" - A "Big Northwich" boat leaving Smetwick Locks

So we pressed on for the whole length of the Old Main Line, whose winding course is for some distance either cris-crossed by the M5 motorway, or has it running directly overhead.  This motorway has clearly had some major emergency repairs done to some of the supports, and I was somewhat alarmed by just how many devices are attached to the supports, presumably monitoring for further failures - often as many as 20 on a single beam!

Where the two lines merge into just one, we finally descended the theee locks at Smethwick that make up the twenty foot level difference.

Joining of the two routes - we have come under further bridge on right.

Pressing on into Birmingham, we found far more moorings free than is often the case in August.  There is a particular location we would normally occupy, and this was free, but there is little prospect there of a patch of grass, which Odin needs on a regular basis.  So instead we took an available spot elsewhere, with some semblance of grass nearby, (well a patch of mud and weeds, actually!).

Fuel boat "Roach" passes soon after we have tied up.

We were tied up early enough in the day, that Cath and I went and had lunch nearby.  Later on, we both went shopping, leaving David with dog and computer.  Micheal had arranged to come back to the boat, arriving soon after 6:00 pm, so whilst I took over dog minding, Cath and David met him at New Street station.  Shortly after a very happy Odin was very pleased to see Michael back.

We chose somewhere nearby for our evening meal, rather than venturing down near the mailbox as we typically would.  This is simply the easier way of handling things, until Odin is somewhat older, (a young puppy is only supposed to be taken on short walks, until their bones are harder).

Black Country Museum to Birmingham

Miles: 8.7, Locks: 3
Total Miles: 382.7, Locks: 209 (Worked)

Another Fast Run Up "The Twenty-One" and Another Unplanned Meeting.

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

Getting ready for departure at Stretton

A curious day today, in terms of timings.  Even with our own personalised parameters in Nick Atty's Excellent CanalPlanAC, which are set to quicker progress times than the defaults, it should be a long days boating.  This is principally because it involves ascent of the "Wolverhampton 21", so called because it is a 21 lock flight at Wolverhampton (!)

Autherley stop lock, where the "Shroppied" ends.

This is exactly the kind of situation where if things go slowly, and other boats and crews prevent a fast run through, it can easily take 4 hours, but with everything in your favour, an efficient crew could probably halve that time.

Entering Wolverhampton Bottom Lock - Start of ascent.

Back earlier in the year our friends Sarah and Jim had worked like Trojans in foul conditions to get us up "the Twenty-One" in just 1 hours 50 minutes with Sickle.  That does require you to be pretty efficient, though.  We had no such aspirations today with Chalice, with one less crew, and a puppy that would need comfort breaks during the ascent.

The impressive railway aqueduct, part way up.

I thought if we did it "sub 3-hours" that would be fine, and initially that looked a fair prediction, particularly when we met a slowish boat coming down, and had quite a wait.  However from about mid-way up it was obvious we were now a lot quicker, and even passing another downcoming boat happened with no lost time.

Mostly I steered - Cath and (particularly) David did the hard work.

By the top we were clearly catching someone up, as David was having to fully turn all the locks.  He was haring back and forth between locks multiple times, to keep up the momentum, and looking a bit flushed.  We did some "in flight refuelling", giving him large invections of fresh orange juice.

Cath and David close the final gate at the top lock.

Approaching the top it was apparent our time would go over two hours for the 21 locks, but not by much.  The actual result to the point of fully closing up the top lock was 2 hours 3 minutes.  Certainly no record, but creditable in the circumstances!

After that our target of getting to the Black Country Museum moorings was an absolute doddle, and instead of being there late afternoon, as we though we might, we had found a mooring and tied up by about 3:00 pm.  This was quite good news, as, by then, it was already the last mooring available in the preferred secured area at the end, outside the museum, and in sight of Dudley tunnel.

I have never in the past done the trip into the tunnel and mines on the Dudley Canal Trust electric boats, but was able to book myself on the 3:30 tour.  Cath was getting worried about school work, so gave it a miss.

"Chalice" tied up with "Iona 2" breasted alongside.

Later on we had another of those coincidences that seems to happen surprisingly often.  A boat that had come in and tied up for water proved to be Iona 2, owned by our friends Dave and Ange.  They had resigned themselves to having to moor outside for the night, so were pleased when we pointed out it was us moored further down, and they could breast Iona alongside Chalice.

Whilst each of our dogs thankfully coexisted with each other in complete harmony, we enjoyed a very sociable evening, sat out the front of the boats, and sipping glasses of wine.  One of the great things about this life, is you never quite no who you will re-meet, where or when.

Stretton Aqueduct to Black Country Museum

Miles: 14.8, Locks: 22
Total Miles: 374.0, Locks: 206 (Worked)

Rather Too Much Time Waiting For The Laundry!

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

The long wait for the laundry.

Today was one where we had a very definite idea of where we wished to end up, namely Stretton Aqueduct over the A5, as we were planning to see friends who moor there.

This meant a "light" boating day, but this fitted well with making a stop-over at Norbury Wharf.  Norbury is a good place to buy diesel, (almost but not quite the cheapest anywhere on the cut, usually), would yield a chandlers for certain items we needed, and there are also BW showers here, and a chance to replenish the watertank.

Good cloud formations.

But Norbury Wharf also offer a laundry service - not a launderette though - you leave a load, which they wash, dry and fold for you as a "service wash".  I think we arrived about 10:30, and were told we could have our washing done by about 12:30, which worked very well for us.

Bridge 28 (obviously!).

The reality though proved to be rather different.  What Norbury had not confided was they didn't have enough bedding for their hire fleet, and were actually putting that through, in priority for anything for other customers.  Each time I crossed the canal back to the office, I was given a new revised time to complete.  However we only finally got our washing back around 3:00 pm, about two and a half hours later tha original estimate, by which time we were starting to get a bit bored with Norbury!  If I used this service again, I'd press them a bit more on the point of actual likely completion!

One of the many tree lined cuttings.

Actually the delay was not a disaster, as we had a lot of slack built into the day, but did mean we didn't arrive at our planned destination until early evening, rather than the mid afternoon we thought we might achieve.  We were helped by the "Shroppie" being unusually quiet - one boat we caught up moved over swiftly for us to pass, and nobody was waiting at the single lock at Wheaton Aston.

Lone lock at Wheaton Aston.

We tied up on the embankment at Stretton, close to the aqueduct, but away from our friends offside mooring - they were not sure their cat would like Odin!  Unexpectedly another "Canal World" friend was moored up just ahead of us - also with a cat, but Odin seemed happy enough to ignore it.

"Big Woolwich" pair "Chertsey" & "Bakewell"

After a bit of negotiation, we came up with a pub we could all visit in Brewood - David volunteered to stay on board with Odin, so we were down to what would fit in one car.  We had a very pleasant evening, with very reasonable "Landlord" on tap.  I was genuinely staggered at the volume of fast moving traffic under the Stretton Aqueduct as we made our way back to the boat - quite frightening, and it was very fortunate our friend had a torch, as I had contrived to leave ours at the pub!

High Offley to Stretton Aqueduct

Miles: 11.6, Locks: 1
Total Miles: 359.2 Locks: 184 (Worked)