Ready for the final push

Thursday 10^th September 2020

Today was all about positioning ourselves for tomorrow’s big push. The objective was to get up the Curdworth flight of eleven locks, and then find a suitable spot to moor. Apart from Curdworth there were no other locks to tackle, and we didn’t feel we needed to make a very early start. We took the dogs for a walk – Loulie wanted to show me the really nice route she had found the previous night, but sadly the woods were closed because there was shooting going on at the firing range. Instead we went along the canal, and back lower down near the River Tame. We met several nice dogs with their owners, and it was a pleasant way to start the day.

We started at around ten, and went through Hopwas, but fairly soon we stopped near the A5 so that I could take the bike and go shopping. We then pressed on, and arrived at Fazeley Junction. At Fazeley the Coventry Canal turns sharp left and briefly trends north east before turning south to its eventual destination (Coventry, by an amazing coincidence). It also links up with the Oxford and so eventually the whole of the south. However on this trip we ignored that option, and instead turned right, moving on to the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. This would take us the whole of the way to the centre of Birmingham, at Old Turn Junction, where it links with the Birmingham Canal Network.

Although we were on a different canal there was no obvious change – the various canalside items looked the same, and in particular those distinctive doors in the bridges were still there. It turns out that this was because the stretch of the Coventry that we had been on, from Fradley Junction to Fazeley, was not actually built by the Coventry Canal company at all. 250 years ago, when they had got the Act of Parliament authorising the route, the Coventry company were very slow to get organised. This was serious for the Trent and Mersey Canal and the Birmingham and Fazeley, who were going to be connected by the Coventry, and who were losing revenue as long as the link was delayed. So in the end they got together and built that section, effectively as an extension of the B&F up to Fradley. Eventually the Coventry got moving and continued their canal from Fazeley down to the other end.

Fazeley Junction

Not far south of Fazeley we came to a very odd looking bridge, at Drayton. It is known as the Turret Bridge, because it consists of two cylindrical towers with crenelations on the top and a spiral staircase inside, connected by a flat horizontal bridge span – it is very much pedestrian only. It was put in place by Drayton Manor, a local country house which is now a theme park, off to the west of the canal.

Turret Bridge

A couple of miles after that we came to the first of the eleven Curdworth locks. We needed to get to the top of these and find a mooring ready for tomorrow. The locks themselves were OK, but for some reason some of the pounds between them were very low, and Loulie had to navigate carefully up the centre. I stayed on the bank at those pounds, even where they were quite a distance, to avoid having to bring the boat in to the side where she threatened to ground. Locks 6 to 2 were close together, running alongside the M42, and before Lock 1 we stopped at a water point, in the shadow of the M6 Toll Road running on a bridge across the canal. All in all these locks took us longer than we expected, and it was getting fairly late.

After the top lock we soon came to the Curdworth Tunnel. To be honest, for someone used to Preston Brook and Harecastle this is barely worthy of the name tunnel at all, more like a very long bridge, with room for two boats to pass and a towpath running through – it is only about 50 metres overall. Immediately beyond the tunnel there was a mooring which we pulled into – we had been told that the top of the tunnel was the last “safe” mooring before the centre of the city.

However we discovered that there was zero mobile signal – not even enough for a phone call, much less any sort of broadband. So I took the bike and pedalled forward, looking for a spot with reasonable mooring and a worthwhile signal. It turned out that there were plenty of stretches where we could moor, and no sign of dereliction, dodgy surroundings or anything to give us any concern. In the end we stopped just beyond a pub called the Cuttle Bridge, alongside fields and with more opposite, and just short of a business park which meant excellent mobile signal strength. There was Armco to allow us to moor on clips, and the only slight downside was a bit of a shelf. A nice mooring, and much better than we had been led to expect.

TODAY: 8:30 HOURS. 11.2 MILES. 11 LOCKS.

Voyage: 43:55 HOURS. 79.2 MILES. 49 LOCKS.

Sent to Coventry

Wednesday 9^th September 2020

Today we were going to be going onto new waters again, as we planned to turn down the Coventry Canal from Fradley Junction, heading for Birmingham. Looking ahead, Friday was going to be a big day, 27 locks up into Birmingham. To put ourselves in position for that, on Thursday we would have to go up the eleven locks at Curdworth. So our plan was to take it fairly easy today – there were four locks to climb to Fradley, but after that we would be in a long single pound on the Coventry, and we planned to finish early.

We started at about 10:30, and the four locks were no problem. I had to wait as a boat came out of the third one, and I recognised the steersman – he is a solo boater who has a YouTube channel called Cruising the Cut. He was a TV journalist who gave up work to live on the boat, and he is a good vlogger, comfortable in front of the camera, and with a journalist's sense for how to put information across. I follow a number of vloggers, but he was the first I found, and I have got a good few useful tips from the channel. When I got through the lock and told Loulie about him she said that he had been filming, and had explained to her who he was. Sure enough she appeared on an episode on his channel, helping him through the lock, and I even got a mention for having the foresight to leave the previous lock gate open to let him in.

We ascended the final lock, and turned left onto the Coventry Canal. There is a small swing footbridge just beyond the junction, but this had been opened by a boat going in just ahead of us, and as there was a boat waiting to come through the other way we did not have to close it behind us.

The is a water point just past the bridge which I had been hoping to use, but there was already a boat there and another waiting, so we pressed on. The map had shown a marina with water point and diesel here, but I had made an error, and it was in fact on the T&M beyond the junction. So we carried on, but I was keen to get water, and a pumpout and diesel too if possible, before we went into Birmingham.

Bridge on the Coventry

Earlier in this trip we had explored new waters on the Trent and Mersey, but today we were on an entirely new canal. This is an “old” canal, built in the 18^th century, snaking through the countryside, by contrast to the canals built by Telford 50 years later, like the Shroppie – he used embankments and cuttings to make the route as straight and quick as possible. In this the Coventry is like the Trent & Mersey, but each canal has its own little peculiarities. We noticed that the bridges all had little windows in the brickwork, about three feet tall, covered with a wooden panel and a padlocked grating. We were unsure what these might be, but later we discovered that they are where they stored the stop planks which could be used to seal the canal in an emergency, if there was a breach, or if they wanted to drain a section for maintenance. On the canals around us these are kept out in the open, or under a little roof. Another oddity on this canal was a swan and cygnet which pursued us for quite a distance, paddling and splashing almost frantically to keep up with us. Maybe they had been fed something very nice from a boat looking like ours, we couldn’t see any other reason why they chose to pursue us particularly.

A mile or so from Fradley the map showed two possible places to get the services we needed. The first, at Streethay, was on a wharf on the main line, and when we got there we found a boat taking on diesel, oddly moored so that he stuck out and partly obstructed the channel. There were also a couple more boats which seemed to be waiting, so we pressed on. The map showed a marina only a short way further on, so we turned in to the entrance there – this is a much more modern place, built off the main line with an entrance under a bridge on the towpath. We sailed through to the wharf at the rear where the services were, and I made a very satisfying landing, turning the boat broadside on and letting the wind push me gently into place.

 We had made a good decision to come here and not queue at Streethay – we were able to get all we wanted in one spot – pumpout, diesel and water, and even dumped our bin bags in their skip. I was alittle concerned that the wind might give me problems getting off the lee shore, but a bit of work with the bow thrusters gave me the angle I needed and we sailed away in an elegant curve, and back out onto the canal.

Very soon we came to Huddlesford Junction. This is where the Lichfield canal took off to the west, to Lichfield and beyond, meeting up with the northern part of the Birmingham Canal Network. There are plans to restore this, and indeed there is an aqueduct in place to take it over the M6 toll, if it ever gets that far. However at present the canal only goes a few hundred yards west from the junction, and this section has been commandeered by a boat club for their moorings – you can’t enter the stub of the canal unless you are a member.

The canal went around the outskirts of the village of Whittington, a nice looking place with a lot of attractive canalside gardens. We then headed out into more open country, and started looking for moorings. Just after three we found a nice snug spot on a curve, just before a stretch which had fairly unattractive banks of solid stone. We moored up and I went for a run along the towpath, while Loulie took the dogs for a walk. She found a splendid wood across a bridge, part of an MoD firing range which is closed off when it is in use. As I was running back Loulie stopped me to help her rescue Minnie, who had gone down a slope and jumped into the river Tame, and could not get out. Happily I was able to pull her out without falling in myself, this time.

Dog walking near Hopwas

TODAY: 4:45 HOURS. 7.9 MILES. 4 LOCKS.

Voyage: 43:55 HOURS. 79.2 MILES. 49 LOCKS.