Hawne Basin

Here I am Rune

Distance 12.7 miles

Total 3754 Locks  237 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5573.8 miles

We decided to stay at Bentley Bridge for another day to get the weekend shopping in from the nearby Sainsburys. There was a Canal Festival on over the weekend for which the guy we moored next to encouraged us to stay for but we needed to get back to Hawne Basin for our own reasons.

It was a pretty windy day today, with occasional showers, but the boat seems to be able to handle the wind OK. Having checked my records, it seems that since we went out on our travels back in April we’ve clocked up 446 miles before getting back here to Hawne.

New Cross

Here I am Rune

Distance 7.3 miles

Total 3751 Locks  234 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5561.1 miles

It was a good day to be coming up the Wolverhampton Flight, fine weather but not too hot. There was also a few other boats making the passage coming down which meant that at least some of the locks were set in out favour. Without them, we were following another boater up the flight and every lock would have been against us.

Tomorrow should see us back in Hawne Basin, although the afternoon forecast isn’t so good, but on the other hand we have three tunnels to go through which will keep us dry if it is raining.

Coven

Here I am Rune

Distance 4.7 miles

Total 3730 Locks  233 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5553.8 miles

As it turned out, the heater was refitted this morning and worked perfectly running for about 40 minutes before going into standby mode as it is designed to one the system and water had heated up. The total cost of the service however was £211, slightly more than expected.

Once the heater was installed and we had paid up we were up and running down here to Coven Heath, probably the last decent mooring before heading up the Wolverhampton Flight of locks. As it turns out there is another mooring at Autherely Junction, but having cycled past that en route to the supermarket, I’m rather glad we didn’t go there, it has a huge sewage treatment works nearby as when passing it today it smelt especially ‘ripe’.

Tomorrow it will hopefully be up the Wolverhampton flight and out to Bentley Bridge where I hope we can find a mooring.

Gailey Wharf

Here I am Rune

Distance 0.5 miles

Total 3730 Locks  233 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5549.1 miles

Life is rarely simple, we got to Gailey for the heating service and, once done, the unit refused to fire up again. Numerous attempts all with the same result, almost fires up, then shuts down again. The unit was taken off again and checked and found that the new filter was blocked with crud. The filter will be cleaned and we’ll try again tomorrow but for the time being we are moored at the boatyard that was doing the service. It seems that we do have a small amount of crud and a bit of water in the bottom of the fuel tank, but not enough in my estimation, to justify the expense of £250 to clean it. The point is that the filter for the engine is big enough to deal with small quantities of crud whereas the filter on the heating unit would block with a few grains of sand because it is so small.

We’ll see how it all fixes tomorrow.