Early start for us today for two reasons, one the scrap yard opposite starts work at 7-30am and two, we were moored outside Phoenix the BCNS work boat and they have a corporate volunteer day today and will want to use her.
Most of the locks were still reasonably full and all the pounds OK.
The bottom lock cottage although not looking much like the original still looks lived in and is actually two properties. The chimney pots look to be original, maybe.
Down at Oldbury Locks Junction we went left along the Old Main line towards Birmingham. It looks like an incinerator power station they are building by Spon Lane.
Back under the gloom of the M5 and all its scaffolding passing under this disused foot bridge, I don’t know if there are plans to restore it and its held together with scaffolding.
Next on the agenda was the Steward Aqueduct where it crosses the New Main Line right beside where the motorway support columns are set into the canal bed. I wonder how much that disrupted the traffic.
It wasn’t long before we were into another tunnel, this one much more modern than any of the others we passed through with a cavernous concrete lining.
As it was still early, well in our book anyway, we decided to take a trip up the engine arm, so once more we crossed the New Maine Line, this time on the Engine Arm Aqueduct. The Engine Arm is a dead end but it has a secure 48hr mooring at the end, a service block and a good winding hole, the last couple of hundred yard are all long term moorings let by CRT.
We retraced our steps back to the Old Main Line and turned right down the 3 Smethwick Locks to take us back to the Main Line into Birmingham, but we weren’t finished yet, rather than straight on it was round the Soho Loop, we have not been round in this direction for some time and the new flats look really big this way as you see the 15 story block first. They are also installing a brand new foot bridge, its almost as wide as the existing road bridge beside it.
At the end of the loop we went straight across the Main line and onto the Icknield Loop, again we don’t normally do it this way round. I wonder how long it will be before the whole island is a brand new housing estate, there are more new shells up and lots of foundations laid. There are still old buildings opposite the CRT yard where the feeder comes in, but how long before they are cleared, the moored boats were all gone .Back to the Main Line and again right into Birmingham and then right at Ladywood Junction and round the Oozells Loop hoping we didn’t meet the trip boat coming the other way. Once round by the Gym we slotted into one of the vacant moorings for the night, there were already two boats here.
Todays Journey
9 locks, 8¼ miles in 4 hours
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