Cold cruise to Coseley Stop

Tuesday 23^rd April; Birmingham to Coseley Stop

Last night we were wondering whether to try and find a temporary mooring locally and go home till we were well again.  But this morning we both felt a bit better, so with only 3 locks to do today we thought we’d give it a go and carry on. 

Bonjour from the Legoland bridge

So after Dave had topped up the engine oil after yesterday’s change, and I had popped round to the Spar for some milk and a paper, we were off – well wrapped up as it was another cold day’s cruise into the wind.   There are yet more new houses in the Icknield Port loop settlement - I wonder if the people in the row facing the canal knew that an ugly great block of flats would be plonked down in front of them? 

We turned right towards Smethwick locks.  Last time we came this way, the whole area was a demolition site, with long views up towards a pub which I think may have had a popular appeal to halt its destruction.  I’ve no idea what happened to it – the view is completely obscured by smart new housing. There was a bit of a delay at the first lock – we haven’t needed to use an anti-vandal key for a long time and I’d forgotten to put one in my pocket when I got off the boat.  I struggled with the bottom paddles at the first lock, the effort just about the limit of my abilities today.  I got the bottom gates sorted, then found myself unable to open the offside top paddle.  Sometimes you can’t, you have to open the other side first and then it unsticks itself.  Just then a large and delightful CRT guy came up to lend a hand.  He went on to help us up, for which I was profoundly grateful, otherwise Dave and I would have had to swap jobs.  He even took away the cycle inner tube I picked up for binning.  The octagonal building at the top lock was burnt out last time we passed – now, it looks in quite good nick if you ignore the graffiti tags.

We made the sharp turn into the Engine Arm and tootled along to the facilities block at the far end, for our first go with a CRT pump-out machine, newly converted to payment by bank/credit card.  Well, it took our money.  Ever the optimist, Dave waited for it to reset and tried again.  No luck.  So I put in a call to CRT, dumped the rubbish and swapped a book, and we started lunch while we waited.  Someone arrived outside so Dave went out.  I finished my sandwich and joined them – Dave Baker lives on the moorings and had retired from CRT, but knew how to over-ride the controls behind a locked door, to which he still had the key.  By the time it had finished, and I had called CRT to say what was happening and request a refund of the first £20, Jessie had slipped inside and polished off Dave’s ham sandwich!  There is no drinking-water tap there so we would need to fill up later – you can use a permanent moorer’s tap if any boats are out, but the only gap wasn’t big enough for us.  There was a bit of a wait at the end of the arm.

The last of three boats travelling together was coming up the lock, and the boat arriving to go down was floating about waiting.  We stopped while everyone cleared out of the way.  There are two excellent carvings on the offside round here – an owl (no picture, I fumbled the camera) and a fox, though I nearly missed that one too.

Fuzzy fox

We used to be quite excited to cruise under the M5 and over the New Main Line; however parts of it are still swathed in scaffolding while the underneath has repairs competed, and it’s extremely noisy as every hammer blow, drill and even footstep echoes around. After we had left that behind, Dave got off to walk Jess, and I picked them up at Tividale aqueduct – though that took a bit of time as he had to get a traffic cone out that wanted to disappear under the stern every time I put the boat in gear.  We saw our first ducklings the other day, though I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture.  Today there was a clutch of cootlets sitting atop their nest while Mum pottered about around them.

Fuzzy little blobs

I wonder how many will still be around in a few days’ time?  We pulled in at Coseley, just as a loud rattle announced there was more than just plastic caught round the prop.  Apart from the usual collection of plastic, Dave removed some kind of throttle cable which had caused the noise.  After a noisy early evening, when two dogs on the offside shouted at every dog on the towpath, and two scramble bikes roared up and down a couple of times, Dave took Jess out for a walk.  When the bikes returned, they slowed right down and were as polite as could be before going away for good.  They probably know the local dog walkers would dob them in if they caused much of a nuisance.

Will we be able to cope with the Wolverhampton flight tomorrow?   We'll find out ....

3 locks, about 9½ miles