Windmill End

Last night we used the remainder of our 3 for 1 Tesco vouchers at Bella Italia as its close to the moorings. The food is nice but there are lots of other places I prefer if spending that sort of money on a meal. It rained most of the night but about half nine it finally stopped so we set off and within minutes a very fine drizzle started, so on went the coats. I expected the weed to be much worse both her and on the Wolverhampton Level but it wasn’t too bad. We saw a few boats about and one overtook us on the Wolverhampton Level, after that I stopped and cleared the prop of some polly and the remains of a very substantial baseball hat.
At Factory locks a boat had just gone down the top lock, so we had a couple of locks to turn, the third was OK because a boat arrived below and came up. The boat that has been on the hard for as long as I can remember has gone from beside the top lock and the large caravan has had all the aluminium removed, the site look quite vandalised with slates off the roof etc. I take it its been vacated in readiness for the restoration work and redevelopment, (details here) if they don’t get on with it soon there will be nothing to restore, but maybe that’s the plan.
There is a strange formation on the walls of Factory Locks by the top gates, its not only forming on the walls but also the wooden gate.

This chap was sitting on the nose of the island not giving a hoot about the boat coming up or us going down.

We carried on down the New Main Line almost dead straight until we reached Dudley Port Junction where it was hard right to Netherton Tunnel, I really dislike this tunnel with its towpath each side as the light on the walls is so far from the navigation, I wonder all over the place. Eventually we reached Windmill End Junction where we winded and drew back to the water point, I think the plumber who fitted the tap had a sense of humour or maybe just wasn’t thinking when the bottom of the thread on the tap is almost level with the bottom of the enclosure  entrance, how he expected anyone to easily screw an adaptor on and fit a hose I don’t know. Once filled with water we moved up clear of the water point and moored for the night.

 

Todays Journey

10 miles, 3 locks in 4¼ hours