Ryders Green Locks

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.8 miles

Total 766 Locks 28 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1158 miles

An interesting day’s cruising is what I would describe today’s as being. I knew that it would probably be quite slow between 2 and 3 on the Rushall flight since they’d reduced the depth on it, but a maximum speed of less than 1mph can feel a bit challenging at times, about an hour to cover less than a mile. At least I managed to keep moving for most of the distance although I grounded twice and came to a complete stop once. The problem wasn’t entirely over once I’d completed that section because we were met by a guy from CRT who told us that there was a bit of a problem on the pound for Lock 8 because the gates to the lock were leaking so he accompanied us down through the flight, which was useful since shutting the left hand gate of the lock as we left them was a problem for the crew since the gates were not easy to get across.

Once out of the Rushall Canal we then made our way along Tame Valley Canal which our guide book describes as one of the dullest pieces of the Birmingham Canal Network, actually it wasn’t too bad since the weather was quite sunny and, since a lot of it is on the top of an embankment, the view is generally quite good. On the way we passed an angler who had just caught an enormous pike from the canal, it looked about the size of a decent sized salmon. Shortly afterwards we managed to wrap on old bed mattress around the propeller which brought us to a halt across the canal. Whilst raking around with my hand  in the weed hatch to remove it, it did cross my mind that I rather hoped that there weren’t any more similar sized pike in the vicinity to lose a finger to!

Finally made it to the bottom lock of the Ryders Green flight, at which point I realised that I must make sure that I read the map the right way up. The moorings are at the top of the flight and I had believed that were we are now was in fact the top, but it isn’t, which has meant that we have had to spend the night moored on the lock moorings. Since we were the only boat that seemed to be moving today, I don’t expect that to be too much of a problem and we’ll be back on the move tomorrow as soon as we can.