Wednesday 19th April; Stourton top lock to Stourbridge extension canal
After a quiet night in this relatively peaceful spot, we set off at 9.30 into the teeth of a biting easterly wind towards the bottom of the Stourbridge flight. There are 16 locks, all quite deep.
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| Approaching the bottom lock |
They are also hefty great things, not so heavy I couldn’t work them, just hard work and with heavy paddles too. The second lock has steel stays to stop the gates from swinging shut as your boat is coming in.
But the locks were all set in our favour and it was taking us about 12 minutes per lock, not too bad at all. We were making good progress, past the Glass Museum and Dadford’s Shed, till we reached lock 10. There is a very short pound between it and lock 9, similar to the Bratch locks, but here there is no need for instructions. You just have to hope no-one tries to come into the one above while you are trying to come up!
Dave started to bring Bonjour from no. 10 to no. 9,
but slowly came to a halt on the cill between the two. The water levels looked a bit low, so I ran
some down, but although the level went up and Dave could move a little further
back, we stayed stuck. Not a water-level
problem then. So I opened all the top
paddles fully, including the rather fierce gate paddle, to try and flush the
boat out and Dave managed to get free. I
closed the paddles to settle the water while we tried to find out what had
happened. We were joined by a walker wearing
a Staffs and Worcester Canal Society sweatshirt, and he spotted a large log which
must have been wedged between the hull and the side of the lock. It wasn’t totally waterlogged and Dave managed
to pull it out, and we concealed it out of the sight of vandals. This lovely man helped us with the bottom gates
for the next few locks. Brian (nb Harnser) tells me he is known as John the Lock - thanks Brian.
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| Our helper is at the next lock |
With only four more to do, we met a single-hander who was pleased to have his help from then on. We were cold and hungry by the time we cleared the top lock, so moored up and had some lunch. This is definitely not where you would want to spend the night – noisy smelly factories, and an underwater shelf which the strong wind was banging us against. So once we’d eaten, we bore left up the Fens Branch past more noisy factories, and then left under a bridge into the Stourbridge Extension Canal. Just a couple of hundred yards long, but with mooring rings on the offside and a good edge, and thankfully sheltered from that wind. There was just one boat at the far end – Solar Kingfisher. Peter came along for a chat – he had been with the BCN society’s weekend cruise from Merry Hill, along with Brian and Diana on Harnser. Meg deserved a good walk after all those locks, so we took her off into the woods, along an abandoned railway line which Peter had told us about.
The area is now a group of nature reserves where once industry would have been, with the canal on one side and housing on the other. It’s very popular with dog walkers from the surrounding estates, but there is a lot of wild space now and we had a good walk. When we came back. Dave blacked the starboard side between the gunwales and the rubbing strake. I sponged out the water that had drained into the cabin bilge – just a quarter of an inch now. The sun came out at about 5 and it was a lovely evening.
3 and a bit miles, 16 locks
That was John the lock that helped you up the flight, he does that regularly. We saw him at the BCNS gathering as someone had given him a ride on their boat.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brian, I've often seen his name on your blog and wondered who he was!
DeleteNot the same John as John the Locks moorings at Tipton, he unfortunately passed away. Lots of them seem to be called John
ReplyDelete