Halesowen, Hawne Basin

Here I am Rune

Distance  12.5 miles

Total 3530 Locks  209 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5103.3 miles

After the weeks break in Birmingham City Centre it has been back to Hawne, where the boat is going to remain for a little while since after Christmas the stoppages pretty much prevent any trips worth going on. We needed to be back at Hawne for this weekend since they have a work party arranged around the basin to tidy things up a bit, so I’ve spent a morning cutting back trees on the canalside. Fortunately the weather was a distinct improvement on yesterday, still a bit chilly but at least it remained dry until the work was complete.

We haven’t decided for certain exactly how long we’ll be leaving the boat for, but it is likely to be for most of January at the very least, which is going to involve me ‘winterising’ it, which will be a new experience. It basically involves removing all water that is likely to freeze if the weather turns cold, the main water tank is fairly straightforward, but the hot water calorifier might be a bit more problematic.

Birmingham City Centre

Here I am Rune

Distance  11.7 miles

Total 3530 Locks  206 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5090.8 mile

It seemed to be a good day to be on the move so we have cruised back into Birmingham City Centre, although I think is was a good day for cruising, I seem to be in the minority since, other than the local trip boat in Birmingham, nothing else was on the move at all. The trip was largely uneventful, another passage through Gosty Tunnel without getting held up by crap around the prop, it is clearly improving. We were fortunate with the weather since the only significant downpour seems to have taken place whilst we were in Netherton Tunnel and the second significant shower came down after we had moored up, so quite lucky on both counts.

The plan now is to stay here probably until about next Friday so we can have a few trips into Birmingham for shopping and other stuff, then back to Hawne.

Halesowen, Hawne Basin

Here I am Rune

Distance  7 miles

Total 3530 Locks  203 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5079.1 miles

The decision was made that we’d stay at Merry Hill over Thursday and travel on to Hawne Basin today since the weather forecast was very favourable (sunny with wind, but a bit chilly). It was a pleasant day to be out on the canal and even had a kingfisher following us for a short while. For once the trip through Gosty Tunnel was without event although, as usual, quite slow. On this occasion I timed the passage and for a 509 metre tunnel it took 15 minutes to get through, compare that to Netherton tunnel which is about 2,700 metres and takes about 35 - 40 minutes to get through. To go through Netherton at the Gosty pace, it would take about an hour and twenty minutes.

The current plan is to stay here until Sunday and then head into Birmingham City Centre until about next Friday.

Merry Hill

Here I am Rune

Distance  4.9 miles

Total 3529 Locks  202 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5072.1 miles

Looking at the weather forecast for the next few days it doesn’t seem to make much difference when we go up the Stourbridge lock flight, we are likely to have rain sometime so we decided to get it over with today. The rain came pretty much as forecast about 11.30am but it wasn’t as heavy as forecast, just persistent drizzle. We got up the Stourbridge flight in about 3 hours but were a bit quicker when we got to the Delph flight as it only took us about an hour and ten minutes for the 8 locks of the flight, compared to the 16 locks in the Stourbridge flight.

Since we are now in easy travelling time to get back to Hawne there is no real urgnecy so we will probably leave it until Friday before we move on…..possibly.