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Saturday 21 June The Longest Day

It was certainly the longest night last night as at 4:45 in the morning there was an almighty bang on the boat that woke us both from a deep sleep! Out went Keith to investigate, as it was already light by then, to find nobody about but, bizarrely, a bicycle upside down on its handlebars in the middle of the towpath. We peered out the back of the boat within another minute and it had disappeared. Must have been a disgruntled England supporter!
Just four hours motoring saw us at Hawkesbury Junction the home of the famous Greyhound pub. We moored up short of the junction adjacent to some common land where there were a number of tethered horse grazing in the heat of the day. Their leashes were long enough to allow them to quench their thirst in the canal. We were fascinated by one who took great delight in admiring himself at his reflection in one of the porthole windows. Whilst enjoying a cup of tea away from the heat of the sun inside the boat we were aware of a strange sound coming from the side of the boat. It was one of those charming horses gnawing away at the paint of the handrail. He taken it right back to the steel the little b.......! We quickly moved the boat back out of harms way and Keith set about treating the damaged paintwork in two places.

Sanded and primed Keith went off on his bike to pedal away his annoyance of what had happened.
During today's trip we rang the Greyhound to book a table for an evening meal but they were fully booked so decided to take our chance in the bar. When we got there it was jammed outside with Gongoozelers soaking up the evening sun and it was just as busy inside. Keith, just like when he is looking for a parking space for the car, always finds one at the first attempt. So it was in the bar, a table became free just as we walked in! A fine meal was had and so back to the boat for a bit of footy.

Sunday 22 June

The sun soon warms the boat up in the mornings these days and so it was an early breakfast and Keith then attended to the boat scars again by applying one of many coats of undercoat in order to make up the deep scratches left by Dobbin.
There is only one stop lock at the junction but by the time Keith had finished there were five boats waiting to go through so we made use of the time in the queue to top up with water at a handily placed tap and to empty the loo.

 

Old Engine House

 

Just before we approached the junction for the Ashby canal we came across some delightful garden art at Charity Dock.

Lunch was had in the garden of The Limekilns and we were able to purchase some of their lovely Battlefield Blue cheese made at Sparkenhoe Farm in Leicestershire that we sampled when we came along here last year.
Moored up at Stoke Golding and Keith went off to explore again and visited the mooring where we spent Christmas Day on our previous boat back in 2004. It was adjacent to the Ashby Canal Centre and low and behold, sitting on a ramp ready to be re-launched after blacking, was Beacon Boat's No4, Ethlron. Must pay her a visit in the morning!

More Locks

Wednesday 18 June

After negotiating the first lock of the day outside the Cape of Good Hope the boat got stuck on the bottom just outside it. All it would do was to pivot about its centre going neither forwards or backwards. Out came the pole only to repeat what the engine had been doing! With the boat across the canal the bank was tantalisingly close with a handy bollard waiting to be noosed by the bow rope. At the third attempt this was achieved but pull as we may and with engine assisting, we were going nowhere. After a few minutes a passer by was collared to help in the struggle and gradually we got her to inch forward towards the bank. Phew!!
We were fortunate to be able to share locks again today with crew of five lads who had hired a boat to pub hop between World Cup games. They left us at Long Itchington where there were a selection of pubs to chose from in order to watch tonight's game.
It wasn't long before another hire boat with an eager young family aboard came along and we were able to ascend the Stockton flight of 10 locks including the two at Cuttle.
Enough for today and we settled just beyond Blue Lias marina and outside the Boat Inn. It was a lovely sunny evening and so we dined outside and retired to the bar to watch Spain get beat again!

Thursday 19 June

Only three locks today before we were to reach the long pond into Braunston. When we got to the first lock there was a beautiful seventy footer that we were able to share with. She had a 1936 Gardener engine whose slow decisive thump, thump was to die for! They were on their way to berth in a new marina at the end of the Ashby canal.
We were then into rolling countryside where we spotted the first of the summer's haymaking activities.

We also spotted our next boat!

It wasn't long before we arrived at Braunston  The canal reached here in the 1770s and its proximity to main turnpike roads made it an early centre for transhipment of loads. It remains today a central point on the canal network.
During our travel today we took stock of our route and decided that rather than press on up the Grand Union canal to Leicester, Sawley and then onto the Trent and Mersey to Fradley Junction, we would take the shorter route up the Oxford and Coventry canals. That way we would save 67 locks and 66 miles and give us more time to relax and explore. We also planned to visit the Ashby canal that we haven't seen for many years.

Braunston Turn

At Braunston turn we veered right under the iconic cast iron bridges and the idea was to to wind at the marina so that we would be facing in the right direction in the morning. As we approached the marina we spotted James and Hazel on nb Gabriel who are fellow Boaters' Christian Fellowship members. Also there was a convenient mooring astern of them. After a welcome cup of tea aboard their boat and catching up on things we decided that we would all go along to the Admiral Nelson this evening to watch a performance staged by the Mikron Theatre. We were joined by four other BCF members namely Peter and Jean Web aboard Arachne and David and Brenda Gooding from nb Shammah. It was a delight to meet them all again.

The Mikron company have been performing for 43 years canalside and this the third time that we have seen them; a superb performance.

Friday 20 June

With time on our side now we had a relaxing start with Dianne walking into the village to buy a loaf of bread to leave Keith to catch up on the ship's blog. When Dianne returned we joined James and Hazel to enjoy a traditional cooked breakfast aboard a tastefully converted Springer just along the cut.

 

 

It was time to say our goodbyes and so we headed North up the Oxford canal to moor just short of Newbold on Avon and enjoy a nice meal aboard before trundling along the towpath to visit the Barley Mow.

Plenty Locks Now

Monday 16 June

We braced ourselves for a whole series of locks over the next couple of days. By lunchtime we were at Lapworth top lock and began to descend the 19 locks in this flight. Typical of the Stratford canal the winding mechanisms were not in a good state of repair with great effort required on some of them. Also some of the bottom gates would not stay closed so it looked as though we had purposely left them open for the boat that was following us two locks up.

Knackered!

 

We found some quiet moorings and made our way to the Tom O' The Wood pug for some well deserved refreshments.

Tuesday 17 June

 We knew that we had another flight ahead of us today in the form of the Hatton 21 and also knew that they were wide locks. We didn't fancy working these by ourselves so we decided to wait for another boat at the top lock in order to share. Making use of the time we found a completely empty bottle bank and we did our best to fill it by dumping the evidence of our first six days of cruising!
Keith spotted a Canal and River Trust volunteer lockkeeper a few locks down so off he went to exchange stories between the Hatton flight and the Bath flight where Keith operates on a Thursday. The chap, who lives locally, kindly offered to help us down the bulk of the flight if no boat turned up; bless him.
After an hour an eight week old hire boat turned up with evidence of "lock rash" and a broken window. Oh dear we thought. Keith invited them to share the locks and they eagerly accepted. We had no need to worry as they were very competent having hired boats for the last 14 years. Thank you the crew of Rosana for a very pleasant descent in only two and a quarter hours!

Hatton Flight

 

 

 

Running a bit short of supplies we wandered off to Sainsburys for top-up and booked an evening meal at the Cape of Good Hope for later.

 

A Day With No Locks

We didn't watch England last night as it was getting a little late after visiting the Black Swan in Netherton. Just as well as it turned out!

Through the tunnel in 45 minutes to look forward to a lock free day along the BCN and into the centre of Birmingham for lunch and being nice to "gongoozerlers"

 

 Some wonderful limestone curtain deposits

One of the many airshafts

Light at the end of the tunnel

 

 

 

 

 

So it was on down the Worcester and Birmingham canal past the university and the Cadbury works at Bournville. We then entered the Stratford on Avon canal at King's Norton junction passing under the famous Guillotine lock much to the amusement of some lads who had climbed up onto it pretending to drop the blade on us!

 

 

We gradually left the industrial terrain of the outskirts of Birmingham to find some pleasant remote moorings and with a TV signal to watch tonight's game between France and Honduras.

The Black Country

 

So to the Black Country

Spend half the night listening to a dog in the distance that was howling pathetically. Quizzing a dog walker in the morning she said that there was a big bungalow with a makeshift kennel attached. Keith rang the PDSA and left a message but they didn't even bother to ring back!
So, we set too to begin the climb of the Stourbridge 16 passing the famous Redhouse Glassworks bottle kiln (Stuart Crystal)

closely followed by Dadford's Shed that is the business home of the painter Phil Speight. We booked our previous boat Anna of The Five Towns that was Roger Fuller's first boat, in here for a repaint but we had to withdraw when we found that she needed some serious overplating. Before we bought her she sat next to a salt factory at Rumps Lock in Middlewich and the brine took its toll.
Half way up the flight a walker with a windlass began helping us with the locks that were all set in our favour so we were able to zoom up in glorious sunshine. He was justly rewarded with a can of Old Speckled Hen!
Two years ago we moored at the top of this flight and were just settling down for our evening meal when we were slipped by some helpful lads. We promptly moved in the dark to a safer location.

Barbed wire should have given us a clue!

The pretty Delph Flight

 

Hey Ho!!

 

We were soon at the Merryhill shopping Centre and it felt as though we were on the top of the world after climbing to a level of 450ft since leaving Stourport (40 locks) with commanding views over the surrounding countryside.

We made use of the facilities at Park Head Junction when it decided to rain for a while.
Adjacent to the lockside cottage at the end of the Grazebrook Arm was parked a beautiful 2.2Ltr Morris commercial wagon. It was restored in 1991 by Steve Bingham; it took 18 months.

We moored for the night at Windmill End in the Black Country ready to embark on the passage through the 3027yd long Netherton tunnel in the morning.

 

 

When Keith first started boating back in the late 1900s there was a pub here named the Dry Dock Inn where they sold locally produced "Desparate Dan" pies complete with horns. Sadly it has now been converted into flats but the name lives on!

2014 Summer Trip

Thursday 12 June

At last summer has arrived and we are about to embark upon our summer trip.
We were going to attempt the Standedge tunnel this year but using CART's profile calculator it would appear that we would be a little tight and so have revised our plans.
The first part of our trip will be on familiar territory climbing up to Wolverhampton and Birmingham bur more of that later.
We made the car trip up to our moorings in Stourport in glorious sunshine this only being marred by Dianne having a bad dose of the flue.
With the car contents distributed throughout the boat we had a leisurely lunch in the Windlass Café in the Upper Basin. The plan was to plod along for a few hours just to get used to the pace of life that was before us for the next five weeks. We moored early evening at Wolverley having made a reservation in the Lock Inn en route. It soon became evident that Dianne had no appetite and so slipped into bed early in an effort to see off her flue. Keith honoured his reservation in the Lock by ordering one of their delicious fillet steaks! Trouble was that all the world had come out to enjoy the sunshine and to gongoozle at the lockside meaning there was an hour long wait for the food to arrive; worth waiting for though.

 

Friday 13 June

After a prolonged sleep Dianne was no better in the morning and so we set off at a slow pace again.

Some clever people around! Wood carvings from tree stumps.

 

Our namesake at Kinver.

Lockside cottage complete with miniature gates and mooring posts.

 

Our seclude mooring for the night just short of Stourbridge bottom lock.

 

Complete with horses and some lads on their bikes making a barbeque after school.

 

It's 9pm now and has just started to rain so that's the end of their fun and games. Good old British weather eh?