Monday 25th August; Birmingham to Windmill End
We left our mooring soon after 9. Several boats had left the moorings or passed by yesterday, but I guess they had been going to Cambrian Wharf or Holiday Wharf for water etc as they were all moored on the 14-day stretch beyond Sheepcote Street bridge. The weather was lovely for cruising, calm and sunny but not too hot. I dropped Dave and Jess off at Smethwick junction.
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| I think this must be the Engine Arm aqueduct |
The BCN Main Line, which we were on, runs more or less parallel to the Wolverhampton level which is twenty feet higher. Smethwick locks are closed, and also the Wolverhampton flight which could have been an option for us if they were open, so we couldn’t have gone that way, but we didn’t want to anyway. Maybe that is why this cascade of water was running so vigorously – it appears to be coming directly from the upper level.
I picked them up at the towpath closure further along. It’s been closed for ages because there is an unsafe building alongside, but the regulars had other ideas and the fences have been bent back at either end – at least one cyclist uses it, and one walker doesn’t, but we saw no-one else. As usual (and as expected today) no-one was crossing the Stewart aqueduct, where the Wolverhampton Level crosses, and we saw no boats at all for a couple of hours, until, naturally, we wanted to turn left towards the Netherton tunnel.
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| We were a little closer so we went first |
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| It was Andy Tidy on Wand’ring Bark towing the Jam Butty (aka Montgomery) |
We forgot to time ourselves through Netherton tunnel, but we think it was about 35 minutes. It has two towpaths, though one is closed. Dave found it slightly harder than he expected to know exactly where he was in relation to the walls as the headlamp didn’t quite seem to illuminate them properly – the two towpaths make it very wide and we saw a reference in Towpath Talk to another tunnel being the ‘second widest after Netherton’. We’ve been through this tunnel several times but never noticed this before. There were several groups of walkers going through, which surprised us – it's nearly 2 miles long and we were pretty sure they had no idea it was going to be flooded in parts!
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| We thought Jess deserved a treat after being shut inside |
We could choose our spot at Windmill End, and left plenty of room for Andy in case he was mooring but he wasn’t – he wanted to get onto the Staffs and Worcestershire soon and was on his way to Merry Hill today. It was baking hot by now, so we had lunch and stayed in the relatively cool boat, and later when the sun was a little less fierce we walked up on the parkland around the Cobb Engine House.
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| Lightning rod on the chimney |
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| The pond in one of the hollows is almost completely dry – just a small puddle at the far side. Last time we were here at the end of April there was someone fishing. |
We chatted to a family about free places to visit in Birmingham for a bit, but didn’t go far as it was too hot.
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| It looks as though it's trying to remember something... |
On the way back we called at the cheese boat Just Imagine for some cheese, and it turned out a nice chat too in between his other customers, who mostly wanted ice-cream.
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| Captain Cheddar |
A couple of chaps in an inflatable canoe hailed me as I looked out of the window – we had removed the hopper once the sun moved round a bit for a better air-flow – and asked if I had seen Davy Jones? They were off to find his treasure. They had no luck with that, but had been well refreshed on their journey I think ….
A couple of other boats had joined us on the mooring but we didn’t see many moving today.
Nearly 10 miles, 0 locks, Galton and Netherton tunnels
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