Longwood Boat Club

Late afternoon we had another boat join us at the moorings dropping in behind us against the pontoon. Dinner was a take a Way from Shobha’s Indian Street food, I am glad I only ordered mild.
It was a bit cool when we woke up this morning, it had dropped to 1°C outside over nigh, but it soon warmed up and we pushed off about 9-30 am. no sign of the others.

Down to Salford Junction and up the Tame Valley Canal. I have photographed this chimney before, but today the light was better, is the symbol an electromagnet?

We weren’t so lucky with the locks today and all the first half of the Perry Barr flight was against us, after that it was hit and miss, some empty some full and some sort of. By lock 11 we were joined by a heron who must have caught a dozen tiny fish at lock 10

Here is the moment that it actually strikes below the surface, it was doing this a couple of times a minute, not always successful.

There is still visible evidence of the days of horse drawn boats on some of the lock gear, here there are deep groves as the rope ran tight against the paddle gear as the horse went further to the left following the tow path up to the next lock.

After clearing the flight the canal is in bit of a cutting, I found it interesting how they had supported some of the rock outcrops with brick pillars, some only a couple of courses of bricks, others more substantial and now all blending in with the undergrowth. It was also nice to see all the Blue Bells out on the banks, mixed with quite a few white ones. Not quite sure what you call .
The Tame Valley canal is reasonably straight and as we approach Rushall Junction with its painted bridge I could actually see a boat coming towards us in the distance.

We turned right under the bridge and headed up the Rushall canal and the Rushall flight, again all the locks except one were against us. The first seven are close together and then a long pound before the last two. Someone has been cutting the offside vegetation along the flight and left great rafts of bramble floating in the canal, there are even branches 40mm in diameter just dropped into the cut. Another email to CRT. Its not the most pleasant thing to remove a ring of brambles from round the propeller as I found out when we moored up.

Once at the top of the flight we filled with water and saw our second boat of the day, also wanting to use the services before heading back to his mooring. Once topped up we moved along slightly and moored for the night. I don’t know if the club house opens on a Saturday night for a swift half.

Todays Journey

22 locks, 8¾ miles in 6 hours of bright sunshine