Last night we ate at Ciaro a small Italian restaurant right on the towpath at Gas Street Basin, its set in a couple of ground floor rooms and basement of a house.
Before we set off this morning I spotted the back end of the wide beam boat that is normally moored round the Icknield Loop beside the new development. It was originally used to take people to the show house when the development first opened and has been moored there ever since. I was under the impression it was now a static feature. Boating wise this morning didn’t start well, we set off at or normal time only to find a red and white tape across the canal between the top paddles of Farmers Bridge Flight. A chap came out of the office
to tell me they were repairing a paddle lower down the flight and would be about an hour. so we tied up on the lock moorings and waited. In the end we only had to wait just over half an hour and as the chap who did the repairs on lock 5 walked back he opened top gates, in addition to this we had the services of three Volockies for the first 10 locks and only one for the last two , so quite an easy and fast ride setting everything ahead. We met a boat coming up at lock 10 and then another just after we cleared the bottom lock.
The Volockie told me that when he checked the flight this morning down at the bottom there were police, the fire brigade and ambulances. I turned out some poor chap had attempted suicide by leaping into the canal, but was rescued.
When we got to Aston Junction I was please to find the top lock of the Aston flight full and by the time we got to the third lock it was bright sunshine and
looking good. After another couple of locks we met a boat coming up, no help to us, but it put the rest of the flight in favour for them going up.
Looking back up the flight this view use to be dominated by the BT tower, now its been dwarfed out by all the high rise development.
We had planned to moor here for the night on the off side below lock 8 but as the weather was so nice we decided to push on. It turned out the last two locks were against us, but we had had a good run so can’t complain. Down at Salford Junction I reversed back up the GU to Star City for the night, this manoeuvre would have been much easier if someone hadn’t moored this pair of boats almost
opposite the junction, if by chance a full length boat comes down Garrison they will be hard pushed to swing into the B&F, I might find it interesting in the morning, I wont do it in one.
Today’s Journey
3¾ miles with 24 locks in 4 hours
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