Merry Hill

 

Here I am Rune

Distance 7 miles 

Total 5134 Locks  416 Tunnels

Running total mileage 7847 miles

 

So after 3 weeks in the basin we’ve come out again for a short cruise, this time out to Merry Hill. We’ll stay here for a few days and then decide our next move. We had intended to stop at Bumble Hole for lunch but it seem that ther was a heritage boat event there over the weekend and the moorings were taken.

 

We did find the gold medal winner for damn fool mooring when we got to Blowers Green Lock however. It looked like a heritage boat with Stuart and Lloyds on the side (the steelworks that used to be near the basin). Not content with mooring the thing on the lock moorings, they also decided to moor in the middle of the lock moorings so that, unless your boat was less than 30 feet you could neither moor in front of him, nor behind. And the icing on the cake was having left the boat in such a damn fool position, it had been chained as well to stop anyone trying to shift it. If the owner had not been such a selfish/lazy b*stard he could have taken the boat above Parkhead Locks (bow hauling it if it had broken down) where there is plenty of mooring space that won’t inconvenience anyone!!! (rant over!!).

It did take longer to get here than is usual, undoubtedly due to the low water levels, set off at 11.45am and got here by 2.45pm without stopping for lunch. The only notable event on the trip (other than the half wit moorer!) was today I have completed my 50^th traverse through Gorsty Tunnel, meaning that over the years I’ve spent about 16 hours in there (todays trip took 24 minutes). When I came out there was a boat waiting to go in who commented “I thought you were legging it through” so he was about to find out just how slow Gorsty Tunnel actually is.