New mooring restrictions on Welford Arm

I seem to have somehow got a day behind with these blog posts. I blame the poor signals at Crick.

We moved on from Crick after a very pleasant few days there and headed for Welford. Our intention was to leave the boat there for a while so we could come home for lawn mowing etc. This plan was thwarted, as I shall explain later.

Travelling north from Crick, then, we passed under the A14 bridge. Here a boat had tied up with its mooring ropes across the towpath at perfect tripping height.

Near Welford Junction we saw gliders being given aeroplane tows.

At Welford Lock our first surprise was to find ourselves third in the queue.

Our second surprise was to find that the 14 day moorings have been reduced to two days. This was done, according to CRT, in advance of the celebrations a couple of weeks ago marking the 50th anniversary of the Welford Arm's re-opening. The CRT man I spoke to, who owned up to being the person who had actually put up the new mooring restriction signs, was unable to say whether the restrictions - applying from April to September - were permanent, but he thought it was likely. The signs look permanent enough (sorry, no photo).

There is, in fact, room for two 60' boats immediately above the lock landing, just before the first mooring restriction sign. But that's not much, and it's a fair walk from there to the pub and village.

Given that wherever we moored within reach of the end of the arm we would be on a two day mooring, we nabbed the single space on the offside immediately beyond the last winding hole. The Mikron Theatre's boat Tyseley was one of the two at the very end; I bet that will be there for at least another week as they are putting on a show on 5th (I think) June. Again, apologies for the paucity of photos.

Having tied up and had lunch I cycled back to Crick to get the car.

Saltaire (the boat) and winter mooring news

We got up earlier than usual this morning and were out of the boat by 0800. This was because breakfast had been promised in the beer tent for volunteers helping to derig after the Black Country Boating Festival. It was a good job I'd taken the precaution of having my usual cereal beforehand as the promised fry-up didn't materialise for another hour or so. By this time we'd both been busy - I'd been coiling cables and Jan had been doing more litter clearance.

I continued to help in the beer tent after rolls filled with bacon, sausage and baked beans - moving on to assisting in the dismantling of the stage. Jan did washing up and helped with bunting packing.

As we had to get to Birmingham today we said our goodbyes and returned to the boat at about 1130 (it felt more like 1330). We invited Barry and Sandra of Areandare over for coffee; it was good to welcome them aboard for the first time and chat before we moved on.

I reversed a few yards to the four-way junction at Windmill End and winded to head along the Netherton Tunnel Branch and through the tunnel. As we cruised the New Main Line a light drizzle turned to proper rain. We were slightly surprised to meet Saltaire going the other way as it had also been at the festival.

The moorings in Brum were busy, but we got a good spot in Cambrian Wharf, tying up at about 1630. We walked to the large Spring Hill Tesco for supplies then returned to the boat where Jan prepared tea and baked a cake.

After a pretty tiring long weekend a reasonably early night is called for (and we may even lie in in the morning!)

Oh, we have sorted a mooring for the winter. We're going back to Thrupp Wharf Marina on the GU, this time to an online mooring with no electricity. It will be a longer walk from the car park, but we'll be able to see (and hear) passing boats on the canal. I'm envisaging not having to use the fridge much, so the batteries should survive with solar charging - especially when we're not there to use any power.

How hard can it be to find a CRT mooring?

One of the reasons for putting solar panels on the boat was so we don't have to rely on a marina with electricity for our mooring. At the moment, while Ally and Ben are still notionally on board, Jubilee is in Thrupp Wharf Marina at Castlethorpe on the GU. But the time will come (won't it?) when they clear their stuff off and we can have it back. Then we might want to find somewhere cheaper/more convenient/with more facilities.

I've been struggling with the CRT online mooring finder. Why can it not be simpler? First there's the auction system for long term moorings. These seem to be for three years, but you have to search through everything until you find that particular fact, right at the end. It seems as though you can leave before the three years is up, but there's no word on any penalty for doing so.

Then there are the short term moorings, with a completely different system of finding out what is available. At least with the long term moorings you can scroll through all the available options, of which there aren't many unless your boat is 20 feet long. Oh, sorry CRT, 6.096 metres. But to try to find a short term mooring - which seems to be one of three, six or nine months' duration - you have to enter your boat's length and beam; choose a duration; then select a possible mooring from a drop-down menu. Then a message comes up to say that that particular mooring is not available. Well, why include it in the drop-down menu, then?

I did once find a page showing mooring prices per metre, but I can't see it any more.

And why, oh why, does every length have to be in METRES? The canal system was built in feet and inches (and furlongs and miles). Locks are nominally in feet and inches. No-one looking for a narrowboat says to her/himself, "I think I'd like a 17.6784m boat". A boatbuilder might well specify dimensions in mm, but for things such as length and beam these will have been converted from feet and inches.

Even the IWA has been sucked in to this back door metrication, as you will know if you've booked a mooring at a National Festival (remember those?).

Rant over.