Hockley Heath

 

Here I am Rune 

Distance 6.6 miles 

Total 5346 Locks  445 Tunnels

Running total mileage 8086.5 miles

 

Gone down the North Stratford canal as far as bridge 27 Winding hole, if we go further than that we’d have to go down the Lapworth Flight and that wasn’t part of the plan. The canal has remained quite shallow so speed has been well down, but if in a rush a narrow boat isn’t the way to travel. Not much of note happened today, other than appreciation of just how attractive this canal is with it’s multitude of oak trees. At the moment there is a lot of duckweed but that  doesn’t impede progress much. The one other thing making the trip down here worthwhile (besides the pleasant canal) is a stop off at the Wedges Bakery at bridge 20, their bread is fabulous!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, the plan is to go back more or less to where we were last night before heading back into Birmingham on Thursday.

Shirley

 

Here I am Rune

Distance 9.7 miles 

Total 5346 Locks  445 Tunnels

Running total mileage 8079.9 miles

 

Finally moved off out of Birmingham down the Worcester and Birmingham Canal to Kings Norton Junction and then along the North Stratford. Met a few boats on the move today, invariably meeting them at the worst possible points. The most egregious point being when we were turning into the North Stratford at Kings Norton. Boat coming the other way wanted to turn towards Birmingham and a hire boat coming down behind us was going straight on towards Worcester. We managed to sort ourselves out though.

I had originally intended to go a bit further along the North Stratford but it looked like we were going to arrived at Shirley Drawbridge at about 4.45pm and, given the number of times the local motorists seem to have hit the bridge in recent months, decided that discretion being the better part of valour, leaving it until tomorrow morning looked a better option.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of depth in the canal once we were beyond Bournville as we were often scraping the bottom, and once onto the North Stratford we were getting quite a bit of rudder vibration which tends to be an indication of shallow water, hope it doesn’t get any worse.

Birmingham (2)

 

Here I am Rune

Distance 1.6miles 

Total 5346 Locks  442 Tunnels

Running total mileage 8070.2 miles

 

Had over a week in Birmingham city centre so far so took a small ‘tripette’ around some of the central canals, mainly to do the domesticky stuff, such as emptying the toilet cassettes and filling the water tank. Second time I’ve done that since being here but I didn’t record the last one as it was a straightforward run out to Cambrian Wharf and then back to where we were moored. This time I’ve gone around the Oozells Loop through the old Sherbourne Wharf marina and have now tied up outside of the Gym on the loop, so a different mooring.

Not sure how much longer we’ll stay, although I’ve still got a few things to do in Birmingham, should be moving off by Monday though.