A long day but a good one

Saturday 5^th September; between Mops Farm bridge and Dimmingsdale lock to below Greensforge lock

Today turned out to be rather longer than anticipated but it was fine.  We were moored alongside a large fishing lake marked as The Pool in both Nicholson’s and Waterway Routes.  You had to go through a gap in the hedge to get to the path running round it though.

The Pool

Last night Dave and Jess had quite a long walk along the path.  There were few fishermen about, and he had a good view of a large carp which breached as they passed.  We were away about 8.30 in bright sunshine making for Dimmingsdale lock, which was empty so took us a little while to get through as it’s a deep one.

Dimmingsdale, like many on this canal, has a good brick-built footbridge at the bottom gates

Jess and I walked to Ebstree, which wasn’t far, and opened the bottom gates for a single-hander who had just arrived.  Ebstree has a narrow metal footbridge rather than the brick one at Dimmingsdale, but it’s still very much worth having!

Ebstree has heritage steel ties on the offside lock wall and we are asked to keep to the towpath side. 

It wasn’t long before we were at the Bratch.  The moorings above the locks were almost empty, to my surprise, as there is a Historic Boat Gathering below the locks this weekend.  The lockie spotted us straight away and we were soon starting down, their first boat today and it was already 10 o’clock.  He said it has been fairly quiet recently – yesterday they had just 8 boats when 20 is typical.  The three Bratch locks aren’t a staircase, though to a cursory glance they seem like one.  But the two pounds between the locks are only a few feet long.  CRT of course were there, with a good pitch for becoming a Friend.

Crossing the first pound.  The stern is still coming through the bottom gates of the top lock.

The blue bits at the bottom right are the gear and paddle which must be opened before the red gate paddles on the lock above.  The locks were originally a staircase but altered to have very short pounds between the locks, connected via culverts under the towpath to side ponds, hence the need to use the blue paddle first to put water into the side pond.  At the bottom lock the lockies tell the crew to get back on board – a good idea when the flight is busy as the steerer doesn’t have to pause to pick up the crew and gets out of the way for the boat coming up. 

      A good opportunity for a photo.  Both the blue and red paddles are visible at either end of the second pound.

The banks on both sides below the locks were occupied of course, with the Staffs and Worcester Canal Society, a few trading boats and, as you would expect, some historic boats.  Two trading boats were still on their way apparently but the lockie said there weren’t as many boats as they had expected.  At least there were members of the public already strolling along. We cracked on to Wombourne bridge, where we stopped for a trip to the Sainsbury’s close by and had lunch.  There was a bit of a delay at Botterham staircase locks, where a boat was in front of us waiting for one to come up, and we wanted to get clear of the built-up areas so we went on through the next 4 locks and moored between Greensforge locks and Ashwood marina. 

It’s quite shady but the sunlight is filtering through the trees and it’s lovely and quiet.

6 miles, 13 locks