Birmingham - Worcester Canal

Captains Log Canal Date 19th October 2009 Travels 18 Miles 3 River Locks 2 Wide Locks 8 Narrow locks 2 Staircase Locks Current Location Tiberton – Offerton Bottom lock Map Ref SO 89131 57956 We carried out a permanent repair to the plumbing, all galvanised iron pipe & fittings have been removed and replaced with Stainless Steel. That should last a bit longer. We plucked up courage to fill the water tank and to continue our voyage. No leaks, no disasters so we set of on a full days travel. (Glyn will be so proud of us.) The narrow locks at Stourport have a dog leg built into them. I cocked it up on the way in and I cocked it up on the way out! Still a lot to learn I think. Once on the river Severn we made good progress and managed to go straight through Worcester. (I was determined not to stop there again – to busy and noisy for us) We then turned into the Worcester – Birmingham canal. As you go into Diglas Basin you go through some wide locks, these are just about the hardest locks to work that we have found so far. The canal goes through the centre of Worcester and is a typical town canal, with the odd bits of graffiti here and there, but very soon you find yourself in open countryside made all the better with the spectacular colours of autumn. The trip along the canal went with out incident, much better than the last few trips! We travelled longer today than expected, The first mooring site we looked at was when we were well clear of Worcester but it was next to what looked like a Gypsy site, moved on quite quickly from there, then there followed a long procession of large factory unit, some very noisy and some a bit smelly, then we were close to a main road, so on it went. When we did decide on a spot, we could not get to the bank. I think it was a lump of coal that had not been marked on the charts. Pam tried out a new slow cooker. Bunged in a few veggies and a lump of something dead and by the time we stopped it smelt lovely and tasted even better. Better than Pub food! We shall move on tomorrow and will moor up somewhere near the bottom of Tardebigge locks. The will leave all day Wednesday to make our accent to the summit.