Well, we finished the Birminham and Fazely canal today, having done 11 locks from Minworth and turned onto the Coventry Canal. Another new one!! And at each such junction, Pete is at the tiller and Elizabeth is in the bows, keeping watch for potential boats coming our direction and therefore keeping us both from hitting each other. Today, as Elizabeth jaunted back down the gunnels from fore to aft (feet too wet to do the trip inside), she and Pete were chatting about whether she had asked him to sound the horn or move to port (left). So intense was the conversation that neither noticed her left foot step onto the canal rather than the aft deck. One foot, one boot, one leg of thermals, one sock and one trouser leg all canal damp. As she held on, Pete the hero lifted her by the armpits back into the safe of Bella. First fall!!
But here we are now, just east of Tamworth at Glascote locks. 5 3/4 hours travelling and 22 clicks - 13 of them locks. We DO enjoy this! This pic is of a footbrigde near Drayton Manor Park. What a hoot. Looking forward to tomorrow's anniversary. We moved out of Heyford Wharf to live aboard 12 months ago, Halloween. For us, not All Souls Eve, but the night before All Saints day. Full of promise and hope. And here we are. Watch out for tomorrow's blog (Dave and Sandy - thanks for the champers in the fridge waiting the celebration!).
We're on another new canal now, after having moored in Birmingham, Gas Street Station on Monday and Tuesday nights. Tuesday, Pete went to Oxford and Elizabeth stayed home (!) and worked at Bella's office and watched the snow. Wonderfully our colleague and friend, Al, happened to be in Brum the same day, so popped by for strategic chats.
Today, we set out at 8:50 and moored up at 3:30. In that time, we moved from the Worcester and Birmingham Canal to the Birmingham and Fasely canal, covered 8 miles and 23 locks (which dropped us nearly 100 feet from the centre of Brum)- a total of 31 clicks in just over 6 1/2 hours. Our best record yet!
On the journey, we saw the fascinating mix of industrial architecture through over 250 years, some of the old buildings still in original use. We travelled under new buildings and under old ones, saw the openings (now closed) to old industrial locations and saw Spaghetti junction from an entirely new vista! Under Spaghetti junction was a junction of canals - parallel sections of the Birmingham and Fasely, the Teme Valley Canal and the Grand Union; all of these with various aquaducts over the rivers Teme and Rea. We were in a lock which was also a tunnel and we had a complete mix of lock styles, gates and paddles. One hardly opened without a mighty push and though one boating family told us of being stuck in it, we just squeezed through. One bridge, near Tyburn House, we recognised as having driven on only just this past September as we drove to Sutton Coldfield. A hugely ecclectic canal day! Absolutely terrific.
And finally, a delightful KIngfisher flitted our welcome to Minworth, where we are moored now. The good news is that we have broken the back of the journey to take us to Atherstone before the 10th of November, when those locks will close for repair and could hinder our way back to Hilmorton. But now we are only 40+ clicks away and have over a week to make it. With today's 31 clicks in one day, we feel we can relax a little on the rest of the Warwickshire Ring!
The serene wooded view was this morning, the urban scene 5pm this afternoon. We woke to a glorious Autumn morning, put on the engine to have enough umph to have toast with breakfast, then set out from Warings Green at 9:45. After stopping at a hoot of a Wharf for fuel and water (hoot - garden shed as the office, Wharf warden appearing with Lab and slipper), It was SLOW going to Brum; the Stratford Upon Avon canal is so shallow that we kept thinking that something was around the propeller. Pete stopped us a few times to throw the engine in reverse (turn the propeller the opposite direction) just to check. All OK, but frustrating. We did an electric drawbridge today and two tunnels! Both tiny, but hey. Then we joined the Worcester to Birmingham Canal to end up in Gas Street Basin, right in the middle of Birmingham. We are a short walk away from New Street station (good for Pete as he's off to Oxford tomorrow). We were both a bit surprised that the Birmingham canals we've been on have been much more lovely than anticipated with grafitti only under bridges and much beautiful building. Where we are moored is clearly urban regeneration, but it works! We are delighted that we can live in the countryside one day and in the middle of urban chic the next. What fun!
We're on a new canal for us again! What fun. We're on the Stratford upon Avon Canal, entered at its midsection at Kingswood Junction. It was so quaint and beautiful. A small link canal from the Grand Union took us to the narrow locks of this canal opened in the late 1790s with much fundraising. As soon as we entered, we had locks as immediate welcome! 19 of them took us up to beautiful landscape.
And - we were on a roll. We followed our wide lock plan of when Bella is in the lower lock as it is filling, the lock worker goes up and gets the next one up ready. But these narrow locks have an annoying feature - there are two gates to open on the way in the bottom lock. On wide locks, there are two gates, but we only have to open one of them, so the lock worker only really has to operate one side of a lock, not both. Not so on these narrows. SO (!) we have created a new routine, including Bella in lock operation. Lock worker opens one gate, Bella gently nudges open the other gate. Lock worker closes one gate, the driver points the tiller into the corner behind the open gate, puts the throttle ahead hard and sends water into the corner behind the still open gate. Hey presto, gate closes! One side worked, not two :-) Then Bella gently pushes forward against the upper gate, driver steps off and both Pete and Elizabeth work the paddles. When Bella is ready, she gently nudges open the upper gate (single), lock worker waits to close the gate and driver steps onboard Bella while she continues out the lock to the next one (now empty thanks to the lock worker making it ready). Ah. We love this.
However, the Stratford canal is very shallow, making us think we had weeds around the propeller, Bella was going so slowly. So we stopped TWICE to check. Poor Pete the weed hatch handler - pics above. A fun moment was using a draw bridge - we've never done that before! Pic above.
We stopped just before Bridge 19 and moored up by a read cider pub. Oh well. Someone must! It was a great welcome to a wonderful autumn day and a new canal. Tomorrow we're off to Brum.
Today's journey is mostly told by Elizabeth, who took Reg back to Blue Haven to rest a bit while everyone else travels. We took Bella three more miles, lock free, to Turn o the Wood moorings, just east of Kingswood Junction when Elizabeth returned. But before that, here's her journey:
10:41 Train from Hatton to Warwick Parkway arriving 10:50, walk to Saltisford Marina (8mins?), drive Reg to Rugby Hilmorton Co-op by 11.25, drive to Blue Haven, collect post and talk to Dom, cadge lift from Barry (Country Dreams) to bus stop at Watts lane, take bus to Rugby centre, get coffee, take 12:40 No 63 bus to Leamington Spa (nightmare bus driver), take 1:54 train from Leamington to Hatton, arriving on foot 2:07. Set out in Bella 2:15 :-) as Pete had already done all the pre-sailing checks.
And we were back out again. Heavenly Autumn day! One of the pictures is from a few days ago - the lock handles on this section of the Grand Union. They replaced all the old locks in the 1930s when the whole of this section was expanded from single locks to double. The old single locks are still present; used as weirs. The 'new engineering' of the first part of the 20th century has resulted in lock gate paddles operated by hydrolic means. So these odd round white 'sticks' with what appear to be even tinier sticks coming out of them replace what we are used to seeing as cogs winding the steel paddle holder. It takes 20 - 23 revolutions per stick (yes, E counted) with a windlass to open them, but to close them, it takes no windlass at all! We just knock the keep off and watch them lower. A hoot!
The other two pics are today. One is the Shrewley Tunnel, where you can just see the upper tunnel opening for horses, back in the days before Izuzu engines. The other is just the lovely day!!
Well, here we are at the top of Hatton Flight; 21 locks lifting us from the beautiful Warwick pound in Saltisford Canal Centre through the Warwickshire hills to Hatton. We did it in 3 1/2 hours(!), making a staggering personal best of an average of 6 locks an hour. It helped that they were all at our level, boats either having come down before us, or on their way down to meet us.
But you should have seen us! On the tightly placed stretch, one of us as lock-handler would open the gates and one of us as driver would move Bella in. Having closed the lower gate, the lock-handler went to the top gate and started to open the paddles. While the lock filled, the lock-handler walked ahead to the next lock, let out whatever water accumulated, opened the lower gate of that lock, then returned to the lower lock to open its upper gate and let the paddles down. Then the driver swaped tiller for windlass, the lock-handler became driver, and we switched lock for lock and just carried on up hill. What fun! We loved it. It also helped that it was such a stunning clear and beautiful Autumn day :-)
We moored up half an hour west of the locks in Hatton itself, in preparation for using the train to collect Reg tomorrow morning and return him to Rugby. Our mooring is wonderful and opposite a farm. Spot the cows!! Apparently they like canal water better than their water trough - so says the farmer who had them out for a walk.
