We were away just after 9-30am. and it happened again, just getting ready to push off and along comes a boat behind us, so we slid out right behind him. There were a few canoeists out this morning but they looked a lot more serious about things then the bunch having fun yesterday. Moored at Oxley Marina is a boat with rather a strange bow, if its to lift the boat as it cuts through the water |I would have thought it would have needed to get to 20MPH.
Bridge 64 at Aldersley Junction looks to have had some repairs to the parapet, I wonder how it got damaged? Thankfully the boat we were following∟
went straight ahead here and we turned left to go up the 21 locks into Wolverhampton. As I feared, the bottom lock was against us. We normally do this flight early in the morning, as the locks all tend to drain over night and if you are the first up they are all with you. The bottom lock the top paddles are at 90° to what you normally find, so you stand facing the canal to work them.
The next two locks were also against us but then at lock 17 there was a boat coming down, our luck had improved, from here the locks were with us, we didn’t set ahead as we were in no hurry to catch up with the boat ahead. Just below lock 14 I picked up the pile of rubbish that someone had removed from their prop and just left on the edge of the lock landing to fall back in again. I could see lock 13 was against us, our luck had run out, then a walker shouted out “there is a boat coming down in the next lock” so Diana opened the top gates and we waited for them. We then met another boat who turned out to be a fellow Cut Web member at lock 5.
The pound between locks 2 and 3 was its normal low level but I just slid through without needing to drop water down from the top.
And up to the top lock, the sign at the top lock could do with sprucing up a bit, its an old British Waterways one and has been hand painted at some point, I am surprised CRT haven’t stuck a vinyl blue one on top of it. We completed the flight in 3¼ hours.
We stopped at the services in the basin, but they are all closed until further notice, it’s a pity CRT don’t cover the sign up saying they are in the basin, we moored up for lunch before continuing on to the Wyrley and Essington canal passing under the stainless steel arch bridge to the Bentley Arm. We slid into the arm very gently bringing the boat to a standstill on ropes, The arm is full of blanket weed and tomorrow I will haul it out on ropes before engaging gear.
Today’s Journey
4¼miles, 21 locks in 4¼ hours
No comments:
Post a Comment