Leaving Birmingham

We travelled up from Cornwall yesterday, together with Ellie and Alice who had been with us for a week's holiday. We arrived at Sherbourne Wharf at 2 pm and collected the boat which had been kept there for the past couple of weeks. After moving out onto one of the moorings in Brindley Place, Mike set off again with the car and the two girls. They drove down to Lower Heyford where they met up with their Mum and the car was parked, ready for the boat's planned return in a week's time. Mike caught the train just before 6 pm from the station alongside the wharf. He was back at Birmingham New Street in about an hour and twenty minutes, with a change at Banbury.

Neither of us was feeling too well - Mike with acid reflux and Christine with a tummy bug. As a result we did not plan to set off this morning too early! Mike walked to the nearby Tesco to do a little top-up shopping before we left a little after 11 am.

It was a little daunting a prospect (in our conditions!) with at least 24 locks ahead: Farmers Bridge (13) and Aston (11). We stopped for lunch (or at least Mike's lunch - Christine partook of a couple of rice biscuits) in between the flights.




The Aston locks were a bit more effort than they might have been as we encountered the second half of a group of 26 boats doing a cruise all together. The problem was that about half of them could not restain themselves from pressing ahead, with two boats up waiting in one short pound. This makes the maneouvre of a boat coming down and one coming up changing places with another as an obstruction! They did not seem to realise that, far from speeding up their journey, it actually slowed them down. at the bottom of the locks we called at the services for water and elsan.




By the time we reached Salford Junction - underneath the motorway at Spaghetti Junction (is it still called that by anyone?) - Christine was quite grateful for a stretch without locks and a chance to sit and recover. At one point on this section the canal runs underneath a large factory that has been built out over the top. (Not sure what went wrong with the pix!)



In the event, we did have to pass through two of the Minworth locks in order find a half-decent overnight mooring spot, without getting as far as the next flight of locks.