Hawne Basin

Here I am Rune

Distance 12 miles

Total 4829 Locks  328 Tunnels

Running total mileage 7,177.8 miles

And our final trip of the year was slowed quite a bit by frozen canal, all the way from Birmingham back to Hawne Basin. In the normal course of events we wouldn’t plough our way through Ice that thick, but we had to get back to the Basin before the weekend so crunched our way through. Fortunately the boat is being blacked next spring so any damage to the balcking can be fixed then, but in all the time we have been cruising, I think that was the thickest ice we have encountered, we were in fact brought to a halt on the Main Line at the bottom of Brades where I had to smash the ice with a pole. It was the one occasion when going through the tunnels was a real pleasure, the only places not iced up.

The closure of the canal was extended to 10.00am today to finish clearing up the pollution incident at Bromford Stop/Spon Lane, it must have been challenging to clear the pollution from a frozen canal, but it certainly looked better than when we passed through en route to Birmingham.

So that’s it for this year, see what next year holds.