29th Sept to 5th Oct – Highter’s Heath to Knowle
We had to be off the mooring at Lyon’s Yard by 09:00, but it was no hardship as it was a beautiful morning, with warm sunshine filtering through the trees. And there are a lot of trees on this stretch – very woody indeed and I cruised for quite a while before I found a stretch that would be in full sunshine all day.
It was just before Shirley Drawbridge which, like its counterpart on the Llangollen – Wrenbury Lift Bridge – seems to be out of action every other week as a result of a car striking it. It must cost a fortune to keep repairing them, It’s a nice quiet spot (it seems) we’ve found, which we’ve never used before, so it’s been added to my mooring database. We were later joined by another boat but they moored about two boat-lengths way, so no issue.
After a quiet night, I set off in warm sunshine, heading for the beleaguered drawbridge. Luckily this morning it was in fine fettle, although the vegetation could do with cutting back and a spot of dredging, if I’m being picky. Paul nipped off to operate it before disappearing down below to carry on working.
I had “gowned up” for Autumn but soon had to remove a layer as it was so warm. I chuckled to myself as I went through the heavily wooded stretch after the drawbridge. It’s a phenomenon I’ve never really come across before. Ripe acorns falling off the tree with loud “plopping” noises into the water. And not one landed on my bonce! It was a most enjoyable and amusing experience. I’m easily entertained when solo at the helm!
My goal for today was a spot we had used several times in our first year of cruising, at Dicken’s Heath. It’s a new village in Solihull and the most striking feature – to me – is its failed water feature. It must have looked great when it was working, but now looks rather sad. And it’s difficult to find any info about how long it was in operation although I did find a snippet that said it had cost 3.6 million and had been designed with various water effects – such as a “Chadar” cascade and a “swoosh”. Not much in the way of swooshing or cascading going on today, I can tell you!
I had to look up what a “Chadar” cascade actually was, of course, and apparently it’s “a type of water effect “created by air jets and channels” – there is also one at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park. Chadar is Hindi for blanket or sheet, so I can see why the term is employed. And now you know as much as I do!
Anyway – we arrived at out spot, which we’d last visited in 2021 to find it’s a little more overgrown, but still OK to moor. It brought back some happy memories of our first season aboard Old Nick.
Acorns!
It was only a short cruise down to Lady Lane today. This is located in the Earlswood, a 27 minute train ride to Birmingham Moor Street station, which I guess makes this prime commuterville. The average house price is significantly higher than the national average, that’s for sure.
The sun came out as I slipped off last night’s very quiet spot – aside from an owl hooting, which you know I love. I’m relying quite heavily on my moorings database as I’m a bit hazy about good moorings on this canal. It’s pretty well wooded though, so I don’t want to end up having to moor somewhere with no solar. The spot we ended up at on Wednesday was perfect and we both have memories of mooring here before.
We are fairly relaxed about whether we will do the upcoming 18 locks down to Kingswood Junction on Friday or Saturday, but it’s only 4 miles to the top lock from here, so we could do either. Although we do have a couple of stops in mind – either Wedges bakery or Marsin – an authentic French bakery, both in Hockley Heath and both rather good. And both rather bad for our waistlines and wallets!
Once tied up, I quickly made a soup from our left over chilli con carne from last night, one of our favourites – along with Spaggy Bog – to make leftover soup with. It’s very simple to do. I keep catering packs of dried soup mix on board – Asparagus is a good one. I buy them from Amazon and one pack usually lasts us a winter.
I simply add a couple of dessert spoons of this to my leftovers, add water and boom! Leftover Whatever you Have Soup. Paul is a big soup fan so he’s always happy. I sometimes do extra veg when we are having a roast and make a soup from that and any leftover meat/gravy. Two meals from one – always a good strategy, I think? Oh – and it was delicious!
It was a bit grey on Thursday morning to start off with and then a breeze came up and blew the clouds away and it was a little warmer and nicer to cruise in. As it was breezy, the acorns were fired into the water as if from a Gatling gun and I’ve decided to call the noise they make as they enter the water a slightly more onomatopoeic “plomp”. It’s much more descriptive.
While I was awaiting Paul’s return from Wedges, I filmed a short snippet so that you can see what I mean, but it wasn’t up to much, sadly. Provisions acquired, I poddled on down to a spot that I had marked as a potential mooring on our last visit to this canal. It has most of the ideal mooring requirements and little noise from the nearby motorway, so we made it ours.
It rained quite heavily over night but – when we went to bed, we were promised that the rain would stop and that Friday would be reasonable. We awoke to rain and a revised forecast. Friday was going to be a stinker! This may be the first time this cruising season that we have faced such a day!
I say we, but our gallant Captain said that there was no point in us both getting wet and that he would be happy to move us into position at the top of the locks, ready to descend tomorrow. And of course, I would never argue with the Skipper, so I lashed him to the tiller, went indoors and he set off.
We stopped at Marsin bakery in Hockley Heath for some supplies for tomorrow’s breakfast, which we’ll probably eat “on the hoof” as we go down the flight. The sky looked a little less louring as we set off again – quite a good thing as we have a couple of draw bridges to negotiate. I was able to stay out on deck and we finally pulled over at about 13:30. The locks are just around the corner, so that’d do for today.
Well that was a rough night! Paul moved the boat just before bedtime – just to be on the safe side, as there was a tree that could possibly land on us if we were unlucky – but probably mainly to shut me up! I’ve had a bit of thing about wind since the big storm of ’88, when the shiplap cladding on the front of our house started coming loose in the middle of the night. Eek!
The alarm went off at 06:45 and we were under way, coffees in hand by 07:00. It started raining as we slipped into the 1st lock. Nothing heavy, just a bit sprinkly and this accompanied us on and off for the first half of the flight, after which the sun came out, thankfully.
About 5 locks from the bottom we were joined by CRT vollies – always a welcome sight. And – being old school – we still pinch ourselves at the thought of getting free help! They helped us down to the Lapworth Link, where we pulled over and did domestics.
We have a dodgy sender on our water tank, which seems to be stuck on 62 litres. It was quite a novelty when we first got the boat, to know roughly how much water you had left in the tank, but we’ve got so used to it, it’s become a necessity rather than a luxury – we’ve gone soft!
There was tree down in one of the pounds below us, so we were fairly sure there would not be any boats coming up the flight, so Paul decided to have a tinker with the sensor. To no avail, regrettably. We may need another replacement – which is a nuisance as it was only replaced in July. It’s not the end of the world though – we’ll cope.
Arriving back at Kingswood Junction completed a circumnavigation that we had commenced back in early August (3rd), a couple of weeks after Electrika. What a great time we had and what an inspired choice of route – sheer luck – as we were very well supplied with water throughout. Ignore the day tags on the map – that’s how many days it would take if you went flat out, which we didn’t, instead taking roughly 3 months over it.
We turned on to the Grand Union, towards Birmingham, as we plan to waste some time before next weekend, when we will tackle Hatton (with day guests – first-timers,too – my cousin Angela and her husband Austin. and grab a night at Saltisford Arm to boot. The locks that are currently barring our route open from the 10th, so there’s no real point in hurrying. We imagine there will be quite a few boats waiting at the pinch points, anyway?
We had just passed under the first bridge and seen the very sad sight of the now closed Navigation Inn, which went under in July, after its parent company went into administration. But that’s not surprising when we are losing pubs at the rate of 30 or more per month.
We were just havering about where to moor, when some passing walkers asked how much further we planned to go, because there was a tree down ahead – another casualty of Storm Amy, which we are in the midst of. . It looked as though it would be difficult to inch round, so we duly reported it to CRT and pulled over. Decision made!
We have a luncheon engagement on Sunday and, if no-one has arrived to deal with it, we may try a bit of DIY “gardening” to cut a passage through. We’ll have to survive on Pemmican and Hardtack otherwise, as stocks are perilously low!
Well excellent service from CRT! It was over and done with within 2 hours! But we decided not to move on after all. The arms of Morpheus were reaching out to embrace us, after our early start. And so we succumbed.
We had a very quiet night, after watching a movie (The King) about Agincourt. War was very personal in those days wasn’t it? It starred Timothée Chalamet as Henry V and Robert Pattinson as the Dauphin – complete with dodgy French accent!. Joel Edgerton played Falstaff. It wasn’t bad but is not historically accurate. If you accept that, it’s still not bad.
We cruised down to the King’s Arms, on Sunday morning, where we had a reasonable roast and a grocery delivery. And that’s another week done.
We (I) shall make our way slowly down to Hatton next week, aiming to be there by Thursday evening. Paul has taken a day off on Thursday the following week to help get us up through the 25 locks on the Grand Union before we turn off towards Braunston and the home stretch.
| Period | Miles | Locks |
| 28th Sep to 5 Oct | 14 | 18 |
| Cumulative 2025 | 450 | 316 |