Giving it another try

February 6, 2010 by Mike · 1 Comment
Filed under: Cruising Log 

Friday 5th February 2010

Its been two weeks since I parked up in Compton so on this sunny afternoon, even warm, I paid £48.20 to a machine at Newbury station in exchange for a piece of card with Wolverhampton written on it.

I hesitate to call it a train ticket, as this would imply there would be somewhere to sit in comfort, sipping a coffee or maybe a beer – well it is the weekend after all.  No,no,no.  There was a train though – the 17:11 Cross Country Reading to Manchester – so I had the choice of not getting on it, or getting on it.  The vestibule, as the “Train Manager” called it, was as far as I got until Banbury, initially sitting on the floor but after another ten people got on it was inevitable that standing was to be the method of travel.

Seated for the second half of the journey, I had by now listened to the cheerful Train Manager telling us that the  quiet zone was at the back, but the buffet car wouldn’t be opening due to a “staff vacancy”, at least half a dozen times.  What about the poor people who couldn’t even get in this train left behind on the platform at Oxford?  How on earth have we allowed the railway system to deteriorate to this extent.

Back to the boating then, here I am back on Zulu tonight, enjoying 3G access with my Three modem – worth noting, as t-Mobile didn’t work here at all last time.

So Wolverhampton Locks, here we come again.

See you there in the morning (oh go on – you know you want to do some locks!)

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Brewood to Compton and a taste of Wolverhampton

January 25, 2010 by Mike · 1 Comment
Filed under: Canals 

Secure moorings at Wolverhampton - no access at all without a boat

Secure moorings at Wolverhampton - no access at all without a boat

Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th January

 

Time to move on now that the ice has all thawed out earlier in the week, but to where?  The route south is blocked in so many places due to maintenance stoppages that we can’t reach Uxbridge until Easter at the earliest.

So whilst I could go up to Great Haywood then down the Trent and Mersey to Fradley, the route beyond is blocked at Atherstone unless I went all the way to the Trent, up the River Soar to Leicester but that area is currently closed to all Navigation due to flooding.  Alternatively I could head up the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal into the centre of Birmingham, but that would just be a huge diversion to the more direct route straight up the Wolverhampton Locks in which we got stuck in the ice three weeks ago.  Although this route is now completely thawed out, and I could stop on the 14 day moorings in the centre of Birmingham at Cambrian Wharf, this would be better delayed until I have a few days to so some exploring on the BCN rather than just going there for the sake of it.  There aren’t many other safe places to leave the boat on the BCN so I will need to stay on board to get the best out of this part of the trip.

The decision point was Autherley Junction.  Left towards Penkridge for a week or two?  Right towards Compton for a week or two?  Or down to Addersley and up the Wolverhampton locks?  Indecision ruled and I went left, then changed my mind and spun round to go right.  Compton for the night was the plan, with a chance to pick up diesel and hopefully some bits and pieces at Limekiln Chandlery.  My indecision delayed my arrival at Limekiln until 4.05 pm, just in time to see them locking up and closing until Tuesday.  Never mind – its a good enough place to stop for a while but I decided to push on down another lock to the next winding hole and then back as near as possible to town without being on a restricted mooring, so at least we are now pointing in the right direction.

I then had a chance to test out whether Wolverhampton really is the 5th Worst City on earth, as claimed a couple of weeks ago by Lonely Planet.  I took the bus intending to go to Brewood to collect the car and missed the connection by 1 minute, forcing me to wander round Wolverhampton for 2 hours.  It was not pleasant, although I did have a nice walk down some of the locks and then up to Horsley Fields Junction.  I can thoroughly recommend not visiting MacDonalds, where the morning clientelle were almost all rough sleepers hugging a coffee, virtually every table had slashed chairs and my breakfast tasted like it had been fried in second hand oil, while leaving the hash brown largely uncooked in the middle. 

On the way back to the bus I passed derelict bars and shops, doorways full of sick and kebabs, several shop fronts splattered with white muddy gunk, rancid piles of rubbish down every stair well, groups of smokers outside every pub (before 10 am) and I even had to pay again on the bus to Brewood, despite having a day ticket from Compton, as the bus I was on was from a different company despite being branded as West Midlands transport.  I do however compliment BW for the excellent facilites at Broad Street depot where the toilet and shower block has a stock of local information leaflets, and was spotlessly clean.  It can be reached from the towpath with a BW key.   Unfortunately the towpath is open to the public and the immaculate top lock was strewn with freshly broken bottles and someone has hurled a tin of blue paint at the bridge, with a trail of tyre marks and footprints running through it.

Off to Brewood by bus, and back to Compton by car for a few things off the boat, and then set off home.  I had hardly done 2 miles when  a helpful taxi driver pulled alongside and told me my back tyre was looking flat.  Marvellous - have you ever tried to get a puncture fixed on a Sunday?  By the time I located a Kwik Fit I was driving on a 90% flat tyre, so ordered a new one instead of a repair, and landed myself with a second chance to explore Wolverhampton.

While killing time in what is the most dismal of shopping malls, I almost got involved in a fight between a security guard and two guys he was trying to apprehend.  I can’t comment on whether he had the right to physically restrain them, or whether they had the right to fight him off.   One escaped, one got apprehended – I do hope he was guilty in order to justify being pinned to the floor, but he had just thrown one guard onto the ground and into a litter bin so I didn’t have much sympathy.   It reminded me that last week I was in a local store on Tattenhall Road when the manager confronted a thief caught on CCTV.  What kind of place is this?  I’ve never witnessed one such event in my life let alone two in a week.

This has done nothing to improve my impression of Wolverhampton, and I must therefore take a view that The Lonely Planet were probably right on this occasion. Back to the car I paid the £118 bill and this time made as fast an exit from the place as I could manage!

8 miles, 4 locks and possibly slightly closer to Uxbridge as a result

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Wolverhampton Locks – the wrong sort of ice

January 2, 2010 by Mike · 1 Comment
Filed under: Canals, Cruising Log 

Friday 1st January 2010

Halted by thick ice at Wolverhampton bottom lock

Halted by thick ice at Wolverhampton bottom lock

After a lazy day yesterday I got up at 7 to walk the dog and set off for Autherley at 8am.  The canal was frozen solid but the ice had all formed overnight, so was not more than a quarter inch thick in most places, so we had the satisfying sound of cracking ice without the problems of moving huge heavy slabs of the stuff around.  So far so good.

The trip to Autherley took until 9:30 so I was pleased that we now had plenty of time to get up the flight of 21 locks to Wolverhampton, and hopefully time to get all the way to Birmingham.  As the sun rose into a blue cloudless sky I did think it unusal that my coffee had frozen, and I don’t ever remember having to scrape newly formed ice off my map cover before – the temperature which reached minus 5 last night was not going to rise above freezing today!

There was a small amount of ice to shift at Autherley stop lock but not a problem, as it too was of the thin variety and once clear of the junction, heading south allong the Staffs and Worcester canal there was no ice at all.  I pulled in at the junction for Birmingham, tied up with rigid frozen ropes (clue) and walked around the corner to the first lock of 21.  It was a winter wonderland of frost, ice, icicles and more ice, this time of the very thick variety. 

On the positive side, the ice was all in the water, and on the metal work, unlike the treacherous frozen lockside stonework which I had on the Middlewich locks last week and so much less dangerous.

However this did not look good.  Clearly no boats had been through yet today, and maybe not this week; above the lock, which itself was frozen solid, was a mass of thick chunks of old ice, all welded back together with new ice in a patchwork style into a solid sheet.  I could just about smash it with a long shaft, but of course it was breaking at the weak points while some of the bigger bits were still well over an inch thick, two inches in places.

Optimistically I walked up the flight under the railway bridge and up to the main road to see where the worst bits might be.  It seemed the longer the pound the thicker the ice, and in particular between locks 19 and 18, maybe 400 yards, was absolutely solid looking.

Even more optimistically, I emptied the first two locks amused by the way the sheets of ice cracked and groaned and then fell into the water below….. and thought there would be nothing to lose by seeing if Zulu was capable of breaking the ice in the first pound.

A small crowd formed.  Well, a man and dog. He said “Good morning”  in a way which conveyed “do you know what you are doing then?”  He let me explain that I had walked a mile up the flight and back, before saying that the last boats to go up a couple of days ago had got the to the railway bridge but then had to reverse back down 10 locks.  Not what I wanted to hear, but it looked pretty bad ahead and for certain, one thing far worse than mooring in Wolverhampton for the night would be getting frozen into the lock flight for days or even weeks.

Nevertheless I filled the lock carefully, making sure that the boat wasn’t getting snagged on the ice sheets alongside, smashed the ice sufficiently to open the top gate, and set off into the frozen pound.  Twenty feet into the frozen pound to be   precise, before Zulu’s old engine met its match and would go no further. With 20 more locks and 2 miles of this to go, the decision to give up was easy and I reversed into the lock, dropped down to the junction and headed back the way we had come.

Stoppages en route would now become a major issue.  I had hoped to get through Braunston before the tunnel cutting is closed on 11th January but this is now looking less likely.  The alternative routes would be south, then up the Stourbridge canal but the Stourbridge 16 and Delph locks would more than likely be just as frozen as these.  Then there’s north up the Staffs and Worcester, down the Trent and Mersey through Rugely to Fradley, then down the Coventry Canal, but Atherstone locks are closed for almost 3 months from 4th January and definitely not a realistic target within 3 days in this weather.

So the only logical option is to moor somewhere local and wait for the thaw.  Brewood?  Could be worse, so we retraced our steps back to Brewood, drained the water system down, banked up the fire which should last a couple of days, and set off South to the comforts of the other boat, finally admitting defeat in the face of the wrong type of ice. 

On the other hand it has been a lovely crisp, frosty and sunny day for a winter’s cruise to nowhere.  Some people are out doing this for pleasure today and I have certainly enjoyed it, even though most unproductive.

11 miles and 4 locks, one backwards.

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Brewood

December 31, 2009 by Mike · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Uncategorized 

Thursday 31st December

On the nicest day of the winter I slept in until 8am.  Dog walk and breakfast took us up to 9:30am, and then checking the map, if we set off at 10:00 we could be at Autherley Junction about 11:30am, then Aldersley at 11:45 and into the first lock of the Wolverhampton flight of 21 by 12:00.

Canal Club, Wolverhampton

Canal Club, Wolverhampton

Sadly at an optimistic 5 locks an hour this flight would take me until 4:30 requiring an overnight stop in Wolverhampton, or a moonlight cruise to Birmingham, as there really isn’t much scope for mooring out on the Birmingham Canal Main Line apart from Dudley museum.   Wolverhampton itself has very limited moorings which are alongside a busy main road or in the adjoining BW Broad Street Basin, topped off with the railway station above plus its very own built in night club, the Canal Club.  Not my idea of the perfect place to stay on the busiest night of the year.

Suddenly Brewood seemed an awfully nice place, with shops, pubs and hopefully no drunken revellers unless of our own making.  So here we are still in Brewood, having filled most of the afternoon with a car shuffle, a little shopping and a superb meal of West Midlands speciality battered chips with chicken kebab meat, the likes of which can only be found within a 10 mile circle of here.  Delicious and satisfyingly bad for you.

Sadly the delights of West Midlands cuisine must have escaped the Lonely Planet reviewers who have today named Wolverhampton as fifth worst city in the world. I may have concerns about mooring here but I’m not so sure it deserves this reputation!  Anywhere with an official dog water bowl on the railway station platform 1 can’t be that bad!

We took a look at the top lock on the way to rescue the car from Nantwich and I was amazed to discover the canal was still frozen solid at the moorings – the first ice in several days.  Altogether it has been a very good decision to delay the locks until tomorrow.

So its going to be an early New Years Eve and an early start in the morning.  If anyone reading this on New Years Day should require a hangover cure, then I would be only too pleased to hand out windlasses and coffee – no appointment necessary; just walk down the 21 Wolverhampton Locks until you find us coming up and join in at any stage!

So goodnight and Happy New Year to everyone, in advance!  See you next year.

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