Star City Sunday 3 November 2019

Day : Sunday
Date : 3 November 2019
Start : 1050hrs
Finish : 1630 Star City

A very enjoyable evening last night with members of the BCNS at the Crescent Studio Theatre and we even got a nice brass plaque for attending the weekend.

This morning, after chatting to my Grand daughter in Australia we left the mooring and headed out to the water point. I was amazed to see this notice in the services, this is a service block in a city in the 21 centaury and the water supply to it is so bad that the shower goes cold it someone stops to fill their water tank. We decided not to wait until the tank was full, but to wind in the basin and head off down the Farmers bridge flight, all the locks were against us but there was no wind and the sun was shine just like spring again. At Aston Junction we turned left and moored by the university to have a bite of lunch before tackling the 6 Ashted locks. At the first one there was an nice collection of fungi growing on the offside lock moorings, immediately below the lock is Ashted tunnel, I remembered from out last visit down this way that the offside wall is not straight towards the far end, last time I caught the top corner of the rear door, more care was taken this time. Just the other side of the tunnel on the off side is a rather splendid old building now in a very sad state of disrepair, I would imagine its listed or it would have been flattened by now. After Ashted bottom lock you are back into another tunnel, Curzon Street Tunnel, however this is a very large one with the railway and road over it and is actually curved.

At Digbeth Junction we turned left through Warwick Bar which was once a stop lock but now the gates at each end are always open, it was hear that we picked up a bed quilt, luckily not on the propeller but just on the rudder and skeg so after we pulled over I was able to remove it with the boat hook and not drag it all up through the weed hatch. On to Bordesley Junction for another sharp left turn down the Grand Union Canal and the 5 Garrison locks, it wasn't until the last one, number 5 that it started to rain, it did clear for a few minutes to give us a nice rainbow but then continued raining all the way to Star City where we have moored for the night, at which point it stopped again, before packing in for the night I took the opportunity to check the prop and removed some black and white thin polythene, its been the first visit this trip, lets hope its the last.

Today's Journey7 Miles 24 Locks in 4½ hours.

IMPORTANT NOTICE All of the above is my personal opinion and does not represent those of any official body or notices. All comments made to this blog are checked before being accepted any made anonymously are accepted but if you leave name I could say thanks.