Birmingham & Fazeley lock 7

We stayed on the boat yesterday evening and didn’t explore Star City to see what was open or closed. There weren’t a huge number of cars in the carpark.
We set off this morning a little after ten down to Salford Junction where we turned very sharply right and headed for Minworth’s 3 locks meeting 4 boats on the way, result, the three locks were with us. We stopped just below the lock to take on water, but we had to run the tap a long time before it ran cold. While we were there this chap on a motorbike flew down the locks (the photo is him coming back) trying to take off at the tail of the lock, there was a lad coming up on his bike. The lad saw the motorbike and took evasive by turning onto the grass, the motorbike saw the lad and also took evasive action, also turning onto the grass, luckily the motorbike went wider than the lad, snaked around a bit on the grass but recovered and continued on his way. On a more pleasant note we saw these as well.Down by the bottom Minworth lock there is the remains of an old building in the bridge wing wall. I guess it must have been for a lock keeper to shelter in.We stopped for lunch down by Minworth Green Bridge, needless to say a boat went by while we were stopped so that would be Curdworth flight against us, however the boat that passed only went as far as The Cuttlebridge Inn. We didn’t see any more boats as we went through Curdworth tunnel carefully avoiding the bulge in the offside brickwork. Between the tunnel and the top lock there is a fallen tree on the off side, its been cut off but the trunk sticks well out into the canal, some thoughtful soul has hung a bag on it, but today something else caught my eye.The Curdworth flight were all against us, it loos as if C&RT have great plans for this flight. We worked our way down as far as lock 3 when I spotted someone working lock 5 so Diana went down to open the bottom gates rather than turning the lock, I then spotted her walking down to 5. It seems the boat was still a long way off and the chap was letting down water, so we continued down first turning 4 and then turning 5 only to meet the boat still coming up in 6. Well I don’t know what problem they had had, but the boat following wasn’t impressed with the speed of travel, it wasn’t helped by a boat below the locks moored on the lock landing. The pound below 6 was down a bit, but I was able to traverse it at normal cruising speed with no problem. The boat waiting below the lock said the other one had been going up the edge of the canal. We dropped through lock 7 and moored up for the night.

Todays Journey 9 miles 10 locks in 4.75 hours. Map courtesy of Waterway Routes https://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/