Day : Monday
Date : 5 August 2019
Start : 1030
Finish : 1500 Oozells Street Loop
I have uploaded our proposed route to CanalPlanAC at https://canalplan.eu/journey/12083_fOY931H2Ds if anyone wants to see where we are likely to be. It gets updated with actual position each night.
Hawne Basin and the Combeswood Trust are just great, offering free overnight moorings to visiting boat as well as selling probably the cheapest diesel anywhere on the system. The basin has a long history from when the Stewarts and Lloyd pipe carrying boats were moored there, it even had a railway.
Today one of the landmarks was being destroyed, no longer need and an expense to maintain
We headed back to the tunnel and passed without incident in about 15 minutes, but it feels like forever with first the low roof and then the tall bit in the middle. You may remember yesterday I mentioned all the new housing along the towpath, well here is a shot of the high fencing.
At Windmill End Junction we turned right into Netherton, a bit wider, higher and longer that Gosty Hill Tunnel, this one took us 30 minutes almost catching up to another boat going through. We followed the New Main Line down to Birmingham, passing under the Stewarts aqueduct.
This length of canal has several toll islands along it, one of them is now covered with tree saplings which will destroy the brickwork if not soon removed.
We did detour at Icknield Port loop to look at the new housing development going up on the island and also the only wide beam boat on the BCN
We then carried on with a vie to getting into my favourite mooring on the Oozells Loop, just as well I was approaching very slowly as a shared ownership Narrowboat just shot straight out, no one looking to see if anyone was coming, no horn signal, nothing. He turned away from us and it was some time before he even looked behind and saw us there. Luck was with us and there was a free mooring so I backed into the loop and moored for the night.
Today's Journey
13 Miles 0 Locks in 4½ hours
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