A strong cross wind in Selly Oak

I took only two photos today, so I'd better share them. We walked the short distance from Cambrian Wharf into Birmingham's main shopping area looking - unsuccessfully - for trousers for me. After coffee back on board, I went back to sort out some business at a building society and returned to find Jan had got a fry-up under way. Yum! 

After this early lunch we battled the wind as we left the basin, turned and headed for the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. People on the bank seemed to be in a jolly mood: we got smiles and waves all the way today. 

At the Bournbrook Aqueduct at Selly Oak the wind blew strongly broadside; a couple of hundred yards further on, with Sainsbury's on our right and Selly Oak Station on our left, the wind was stronger still. Our chimney hat blew off; fortunately the safety wire attaching it held. Here we met up with Chris and Sally on Kairos and had a nice cup of tea and a chat on their boat.

In Sainsbury's my trousers quest was accomplished. Even better, we walked along the eastern end of the proposed new route of the Dudley (Lapal) Canal. We didn't have time to explore beyond Sainsbury's - perhaps next time we pass.

Around the Bournville area this man took a break from serenading his dog to talk to a towpath walker. The sun was in his eyes.

We made the sharp left turn onto the Stratford Canal and stopped at Bridge 5. This evening we had another fabulous curry at The Sweet Chillies in Yardley Wood Road.

Oh no! What's happened to forward gear?

We left Windmill End for the final time this morning, after walking down to Lidl for some supplies.

Having passed through Netherton Tunnel we stopped just after Tividale Aqueduct for lunch.

At Dudley Port Junction we turned left onto the New Main Line and after a while came to the former Watery Lane Junction.

The plaque reads: The Tipton Green and Toll End Communication formerly crossed the Birmingham Level at this point 1809 - 1960.

It was good to feel the windlass in my hand again for Factory Locks after more than a week on the Birmingham Level. But at Lock 2 … Houston, we have a problem.

Jan, at the helm at the bottom of the lock, reported that it would go no faster than tickover in forward. I filled the lock and had a feel of the Morse control. It seemed to be physically obstructed in forward. I would have to take a proper look, but decided to do this on the lock landing above the top lock. Jan steered into Lock 1 on tickover, ascended the lock and stopped on the landing. With the deck boards up I could see the cable moving as it should. The Morse lever seemed to be hitting something much nearer to the control itself. Opening the door on which it is mounted I immediately saw the cause of the problem. (And here I should have taken a photo. Perhaps tomorrow.) A woodscrew holding a metal clip thing in position had come loose; the metal clip had rotated such that it was stopping the lever travelling much beyond the vertical. It was a matter of seconds to tighten the screw with the clip in what I hope is the right place - and we were up and running again.

At Factory Junction, a few yards from where we'd stopped, we turned left to head to the facilities by the Black Country Living Museum. On the way we passed the site of the Tipton Canal Festival.

At least, this is where some boats had congregated. A bit further on we came across Andy and Helen on Wand'ring Bark and The Jam Butty. We tied up in front of them after the services and joined them for a cup of tea. Later in the evening Chris and Sally of Kairos came for drinks.

Tomorrow we don't have to go anywhere or do anything (much)! Oh, apart from joining a group of people going to Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory. Will I have another cow pie?

A tunnel that wasn't, and one that was (although currently unnavigable)

It was good to see the toll house at King's Norton Junction being renovated after the fire a year or so ago.

On the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and heading into Birmingham there was a new building awaiting us. It looked as though it was built right over the canal with a tunnel for boats...

… but when we got there we found the building - part of the University of Birmingham and seemingly called Unite Students - was just to the west of the canal.

The only tunnel was that built to accommodate the proposed restoration (and re-routing) of the Dudley No. 2 Canal. This used to run from very near here at Selly Oak to Hawne Basin via the (now collapsed) Lapal Tunnel. If the restoration succeeds it is likely that the new canal will be known as the Lapal Canal.

The (short) tunnel is directly behind the slender tree in the photo above.

We stopped just round the corner from Holliday Wharf and walked to the Apple store. Here my phone was looked at but they couldn't do anything to make it work again. Grr. I discovered there that none of my contacts has been backed up in something called iCloud. Double grr. I am therefore now having to use my old Nokia PAYG, with no e-mail or WhatsApp. Even text messages cost money.

After lunch we continued our journey to Windmill End for the Black Country Boating Festival this weekend. At the toll island on the Birmingham Canal New Main Line, just before the Engine Arm Aqueduct, we found that it has been taken over by a nascent beech forest. It gave the side of the boat a good rubbing.

A little later, on a bridge high over the canal, a heron perched.

Who can identify the bridge for me?

We turned left at Dudley Port Junction and took about 35 minutes to get through Netherton Tunnel. The sign at the entrance suggests that passage should take approximately 56 minutes (sic). Really? Perhaps I misread the sign. We are now at the site of the BCBF and will get stuck in - helping with the setup - tomorrow.

Brades Staircase

I filled yesterday's blog post with photos of our Dudley Tunnel trip and didn't say anything about what else we did, which was to return to central Birmingham.

I thought it would be fun to go down the BCN's only staircase pair, at Brades Locks. Having seen very little traffic since we left Tipton I was surprised to find a boat coming up the staircase. Apparently there was an emergency stoppage affecting Factory Locks, so boats were being diverted via Brades. I hadn't received an e-mail alert from CRT so I guess whatever it was had happened very recently.

The intermediate gate of the staircase wouldn't close easily - there was a coconut in the way. You see a lot of coconuts in the water in areas of high Asian population. Hindus (or is it Sikhs, or both?) use them in their funeral rituals, putting the deceased's ashes in them and floating them off down the canal on the basis that all waterways lead to the Ganges.

After three weeks of boating without needing to visit the weed hatch we caught a bag round the blades on the New Main Line. I pulled in to the bollards at the foot of the Smethwick New Pumping Station to remove it, and caught another one as soon as I pulled away. Grr. I removed that one sitting between the bank and an old toll island ... and caught another large bag round the rudder.

First bag: Sainsbury's

Second bag: Tesco

Third bag: insulation packaging

We tied up at Cambrian Wharf in the one remaining space, and went to bed with the rowdies making a terrific racket at the Flapper and Firkin. Why do they have to SHOUT so much? All was peaceful by 0030 ...

This morning we went to St Luke's, Gas Street for their 0930 service. A gap near Worcester Bar leads directly onto Gas Street; the church is opposite.

The building used to be a gas producing factory.

After church we set off down the Farmer's Bridge and Aston lock flights, staying on the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal to Minworth Greaves, descending Minworth Locks on the way.

At Aston Top Lock a curious flying insect perched on the balance beam handle. I don't recognise it, do you?

Well-known canal junction cottage burnt out

We moored at Kings Norton Junction for two nights and moved on today to central Birmingham. It was sad to see that the cottage on the junction has suffered a devastating fire. The roof has gone and, I imagine, much of the interior. Fortunately it seems that the table of tolls on the first floor wall has been spared. I was told it happened a couple of months ago.

There's still no space in Brindleyplace ...

We tied up in Cambrian Wharf alongside the stone bank with its metal rail at water level. Bonglers were deployed.

The adjacent top lock of the Farmers Bridge flight had evidently just had the bottom gate replaced.

The rather flimsy-looking Portagantry was still in place, straddling the lock.

We went to the Wetherspoon in Broad Street for tea and walked back past Gas Street Basin.

CRT apologises for dozens of duplicate e-mails

A couple of days ago we were having our sandwiches in a break from painting when my phone pinged to indicate the arrival of an e-mail. Nothing unusual there. It was a standard notice alert from CRT. Again, nothing to merit comment. But my phone pinged a few seconds later with the same message, which I immediately deleted, as I had the first one. The phone then pinged again and again … and again and again and again with barely a pause. Something was clearly going wrong and there was little I could do about it. When my phone eventually stopped pinging I counted 120 duplicate e-mails (I might have missed some). Later a fresh e-mail from CRT apologised for the disruption caused to some people by a bug in the system. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

We are now at the Black Country Boating Festival at Windmill End Junction - we could hardly be closer to the actual junction. We made an early start from Cambrian Wharf and got here at about 1000. I then spent a considerable amount of time scrubbing (notionally) white plastic tables, setting them out in the main marquee and putting chairs round them.

This evening we enjoyed an archive compilation film on boating in the midlands in the company of (among others) Andy Tidy, Barry and Sandra of the Homebrew boat, Brian and Diana of Harnser, David and Mary of Kew and Peter of Solar Kingfisher.

I expect tomorrow will see us with litter pickers in hand helping to keep the site clean.

Pressure washing the towpath

It's happened again. I was too tired last night to write the blog so here are two days' worth. We woke up on Wednesday morning to a fresh and sunny Cambrian Wharf.

We reversed out of the mooring, winded and headed for Worcester Bar where we joined the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. At Edgbaston we paused to chat to Peter on Solar Kingfisher. A little before King's Norton Junction we had to wait while a contractor's boat cleared a fallen tree from the canal and towpath.

We were eventually waved on past; as we did so I remarked that there was a nice load of logs for someone. Immediately I was offered some; this was my haul.

And this is the result of applying the bow saw later.

As we made the sharp left turn onto the Stratford Canal there was more work going on.

This time there was actually someone in the water, trimming off the tops of wooden stakes securing coir matting.

We tied up at Bridge 5 (Yardley Wood Road) where I did the log sawing. In the evening we went to our favourite curry house, the Sweet Chillies, for a lovely meal.

This morning I got a surprise as I looked out. Fog.

By the time we'd chatted to Dave who is renovating Canal Cottage, watered up and had a brief conversation with Brian and Diana on Harnser who came along the fog had gone to reveal sunshine.

Here is Harnser passing Canal Cottage.

One of the reasons we had reversed to the water point was to get out of the way of contractors pressure washing the brick towpath.

Our journey down the Stratford was uneventful until, just before the top lock of the Lapworth flight, a hire boat appeared in front. They were quite slow, and we had planned on having a barbecue in the long pound below Lock 5. To speed them up I cycled ahead and set the locks for them. Returning from setting Lock 5 I dinged my bell as I came up behind a man walking his dog along the towpath. This turned out to be our friend - and my former colleague - Ian. This unplanned meeting quickly turned into an invitation for him to join us for the barbecue, so we stopped above Lock 5 in the sun, lit the BBQ and had a really enjoyable evening. At one point Ian's friend Clive joined us for a drink. Clive used to be the chairman of the IWA. Ian gave us a top tip for a curry house in Warwick, so we'll go there on Saturday and check it out.

It was good to see you, Ian, and good to catch up on some BBC news.

Tomorrow's plan is to finish off the Lapworth Locks and get to the top of Hatton, leaving that flight for Saturday's little workout.

Overcharged

The computer's battery died without warning last night so here are two days' worth of blog posts in one. Yesterday morning started with sunshine (we had a small amount of rain later); here is Nansen II preparing to tow Leo from the Black Country Boating Festival.

The butty looks huge compared with the tug.

The combination will steer better with a tiller; it took a moment or two for the steerer to realise that the rudder was still tied back to the stern.

This is what I have been doing a lot of over the four and a half days we've been here at Windmill End: litter picking.

Jan has done a lot too, as well as helping in the office, table clearing and cleaning, marquee dismantling etc. Yesterday was a rubbish day. I shifted vast amounts of the stuff into skips.

In the evening we went for a meal at Ma Pardoe's, aka The Old Swan, in Netherton. I had an excellent lasagne which came with a load of delicious molten cheese on top. Barry and Sandra from the Homebrew boat Areandare joined us for drinks later.

And so to today. We went down to Hawne Basin for diesel and gas. Poor Jenny, who was manning the shop, was struggling with the computerised system and managed to overcharge me by mistake for the fuel - to the tune of £23. I realised only after we had returned through Gosty Hill Tunnel. We stopped and I phoned her; she apologised and implied I wasn't the only victim of the computer problems. I'll have to phone again tomorrow to give them my contact details and sort out how I can be refunded.

As we approached Gosty Hill Tunnel we observed two people acting strangely by the portal. At first we thought they were graffiti vandals; when we got closer it seemed as if they were inspecting the brickwork. When I asked them what they were doing they told me they were geocaching.

Jan steered through Netherton Tunnel; on the other side and all the way to Birmingham I saw quite a few herons. Most were on the bank; this one was high in a tree.

A minute or two before we arrived at the services at Cambrian Wharf we found ourselves under a sudden thunderstorm. The lightning and thunder were accompanied by heavy rain. We tied up on a pontoon at the wharf; shortly afterwards the rain stopped.