Longwood Boat Club

Last night we are in The Finger Post, they were rushed off their feet and warned us it would be 30 minutes before our order went to the kitchen, actually it was a bit less. The Beef Rendang Curry was well worth the wait. This morning a boat came by before we were ready to leave and also the two chaps came back to try to get their boat going that broke down yesterday.
A few spots of rain as we set off at 1030 heading towards Brownhills and Catshill Junction but they didn’t come to anything, so we had a dry but often cloudy run.
For some time now the visitor moorings have been in need of some attention as the edge appeared to be caving into the canal, it looks as if its about to happen.

Between here  and Catshill Junction is the first bit of floating weed we have come across, but it wasn’t thick enough to cause problems.

At Catshill Junction we turned down the Daw End Branch, this proved slower going than the Wyrley & Essington where I was surprised by the lack of weed for mid summer. Just beyond the junction is one of CRT’s metal stop plank houses, there are a few on the BCN, this one looks well overgrown with weeds.

By Walsall road bridge there is a metal silhouette of a fisherman, Many times I have tried to photograph this and failed because of the light, this is my best yet.

Its good to see that this Mural has not been defaced yet. Its been here a couple of year now I think.

Aldridge Marina is still as empty as ever with only one boat on the moorings, maybe he is the owner.

Mind you the signage doesn’t really look inviting and as you can see from the photo there are plenty of them.

The canal got more and more silty as we went along, there is a stream coming in on the off side and I think it dumps loads of silt in the cut, it was just past here that I had to do a weed hatch visit, one of the things I found was a 2Mt steel tape measure, thankfully that hadn’t wrapped round as was just trailing. We cast a couple of CRT contractors busily cutting the towpath grass, one with a strimmer and the other following with a mower. Not long after this we arrived at Longwood boat club at the junction with the Rushall Canal where we have moored for the night. We hadn’t been tied up long when it started to rain.
Looking down the flight I can see a boat moored in the first pound, he is probably sitting on the bottom.

Today’s Journey

7¾ miles, no locks in 3½ hours.