Minworth Locks
Our Journey was taken over two days (short cruise to Minworth and then onto Aston Business Park Moorings)
Miles = 6. 35 Locks = 6 Cruising time 3.5 hours
Friday 28th January
Steph returned to Derby yesterday to stay with Chan, see Pops (her dad) and take Tilly and Winston for a haircut, whilst Paul moved a short distance to the bottom of Minworth Locks which took him about 30 minutes. Although a short journey flanked by HS2 building work on one side and industrial units on the other, he did pass The Boat Inn but thought he had better not stop and enjoy himself due to the large list of job Steph had given him. He would have been severely chastised on her return if the list had not been completed :)
Task List Successfully Completed on on the Friday evening, for the return of Steph with Chan and Jake we had a lovely evening, drank lots of red wine, chatted and played games - just brilliant.
Saturday 29th January
Chan and Jake helped us through the three Minworth locks. They did the first two then Paul and I did the last one whilst they had a cruise and took Hang Loose through the top lock.
It was so lovely to have them on board but sadly they had to get going early afternoon - this is the pups just sat watching them walk away down the towpath!
It was a really windy today and normally we don’t tend to cruise on days like this but in order to get to or destination we needed to be through the Minworth Locks by the end of this month as the middle lock will be closed for circa 10 weeks for repairs. Plus the fact Jake was keen to learn more about boat life, but was Chan a good teacher ??????. More about the perils of cruising in high winds later…. but sadly it was now time to say goodbye for now.
We continued cruising not saying much for a little while,,…….. probably both pondering the same thing - how good it was to see them both again and the massive hole they would leave behind. Our intentions today, to say the least were a little over optimistic (27 locks was the plan) as we were hoping to reach the centre of Birmingham, while enjoying this new to us canal. Unfortunately the following picture didn’t capture our initial impressions, as the sunlight was shining on the graffiti from the left, from a distance it portrayed the impressions of stain-glass windows, as if we were about to proceed through a cathedral like structure, in reality it was a workplace that once belonged to Birlec who were manufacturers of electric arc furnaces.
We turned left at Salford Junction to head for the Aston flight of locks. Look at all the busy roads above us - I’m not sure they even know we’re down here! There’s so much rubbish in the canal and graffiti everywhere (some good, some not so good!). It’s definitely not our usual choice of canal - we do like to be out in the sticks - but we are really enjoying it.
Salford Junction is where the Grand Union Canal’s ‘Saltley Cut’ and the Tame Valley Canal (both of which date from 1844) form a canal crossroads with the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal.
We had had word from Bob and Rosemary that they had moored up after lock 9 near Rocky Lane Bridge, where there are visitor moorings on the off side. We had stopped at Cuckoo Wharf to use the facilities and were actually in two minds whether to keep going as it was so windy, but we decided to keep going. We only got as far as Lock 9 too and moored up alongside NB Sefton as there were no more spaces.
On reflection it was a great day, some would say a little over optimistic and maybe we should have factored in the inclement weather conditions which troubled a lot of boaters that day. The wind can easily blow a boat into difficulty, with the added impact of shallow pounds it is easy to lose complete control which can have dire repercussions. To most continuous cruisers the narrowboat is our home and the thought of losing everything can be very scary, hence most boaters stay put in high winds unless essential. We were lucky today and blessed with the thought we might even have new part time crew member if the training continues with Jake. Tomorrow is another day, still with a lot of locks to do, but the weather forecast is a lot better