Farewell, Pelsall, it's been good to know you!

On Tuesday morning, we were one of the last to leave Pelsall. Most had gone the opposite way from us, we noticed, so our progress wasn't going to be hindered by other boats. Though we weren't in a hurry.

Boaters waved and called, "Goodbye! Have a good trip!" The weather was glorious. Several people we spoke to said that they were going to take the short detour up the Chasewater Arm on their way off the Wyrley. It was tempting. It sounded really lovely. But we wanted to feel now that we were "on our way back" now. This was a change of mindset from that of the previous months, when all the time we were headed for somewhere new.

The junction with the Cannock Extension Canal 

The Wyrley this side of Pelsall was rather different from the other. The water was cleaner and far less weedy, still narrow in parts, but opening out for much of the time.

So we passed on Chasewater, turning right at Catshill Junction instead, and onto the Daw End Branch. We stopped briefly at a convenient Tesco, moored at a crazy angle with our bow tied at the bank and our stern to an old BW butty, and for services and lunch at Longwood Junction.

Looking up the Chasewater Arm...

...we turn right under the bridge

We were on the Rushall Canal after that, and nine locks that proved something of a challenge, locks which are going to be closed for several weeks from next week, locks that desperately need major maintenance work. They leak very badly, and the pounds between them got progressively shallower as we descended the flight, slowing us more and more, and forcing us to keep to the middle of the channel, despite the problem then of passing oncoming boats. Many of the gate beams were rotten and crumbling, the bolts holding the winding mechanisms loose and wobbling in the old wood. Many of those winding mechanisms were themselves stiff and jammed.

Tired and hungry, we stopped at the bottom of the flight, and moored for the night.

The Wolverhampton Flight

Wednesday
We had intended to start early today, to get to the Wolverhampton Flight and complete its 21 locks before lunch. And also to avoid as many other users as possible. But we overslept, and didn't leave our mooring until 9:00. There were very few other boats around. A good sign, we thought.

There was an old boat moored under the M54 bridge, and all sorts of tools and boxes and unidentifiable stuff stood on the concrete bank next to it. We passed slowly, as one does, and were startled by a very loud, deep voice in some alien language. A troll under the bridge, surely? And this thought was supported by the appearance from the boat of a huge hulk of a man, who walked down its length towards us. He bellowed again, totally unintelligibly, and stood and watched us retreat. We sped off, listening for strains of “I'm a troll, fol-de-rol, and I'll eat you for supper!”

Bridge 4, Pendleford Bridge, marked the start of an urban scene. The graffiti said it colourfully. Drab factories spread out to our left, and a noisy road ran alongside to the right.

It's 4½ miles from the fantasy-sounding Brewood to our right turn at Autherly Junction, and after another ½ mile, we took a sharp left turn at Aldersly Junction, bringing us immediately to the bottom lock of the Wolverhampton Flight. We waited for a boat ahead of us to go through the lock. Another boat waited behind us. So much for avoiding other boats!

The crew of the boat ahead alerted me to the need for the anti-vandal key at each of these locks, and I suggested that they leave the...

OK, this is going to get complicated! We now have two very different types of lock. The wet kind with gates that we use to ascend the canal, and the type with a key (in this case, the anti-vandal key) which is used to stop vandals from raising the paddles and flooding the place. To avoid confusion, the Locks which fill with water will be spelled with capital “L”. The other type will have a lower-case “l”. Sorted!

The crew of the boat ahead alerted me to the need for the anti-vandal key at each of these Locks, and I suggested that they leave the locks open for me, since I was going to be so close behind them. I, too, would leave them open for the boat behind us, and that crew would decide whether or not to leave them, too. There was no sign of another boat at the time. As it happened, the young lady doing the Locks took it into her head to close all of the locks next to which there was a sign reminding her to do so. This was almost invariably at one of the top paddles and one of the bottom ones – half of the locks! Over the total 21 Locks, it slowed me down, and the boat behind who had to wait for me.

The Locks went easily enough otherwise, and they took us 4 hours. There were occasional delays while we waited for another boat to descend the next Lock above us, and I had to empty almost every one for Kantara to empty. And it follows that the woman from the boat behind us had to do the same. But the locals were friendly, the boaters all in high spirits because of he weather. Lots of those coming down the flight spoke of meeting several others on their way to Pelsall.

 Three old guys sat at the side of one Lock, talking loudly and with considerable animation. All of them were recovering alcoholics, boasting with great pride how long they'd been “dry”, and encouraging each other to keep it up and never look back.

Three young men at Top Lock sat drinking cans of Coke and discussing what I first took to be philosophy, or perhaps advanced maths. I was impressed.

“What you have to do,” said one, “is decide how many unknowns there are, and then determine the time factors involved.”

In the minutes it took me to see Kantara up through the Lock, it became apparent to me that they were, in fact, talking about a computer game. It was the “And there's one that has hands like huge crab's claws, and it rips your head off if you don't get it right” that gave it away.

Sirens welcomed us into Wolverhampton. Sirens and flashing blue lights. We hurried on out towards the countryside again, to find somewhere to moor, to eat – we'd only had a piece of cake since yesterday's evening meal – to drink, and to spend the night.

Turning left onto the Wyrley and Essington Canal (aka the Curly Wyrley) we hoped to find a mooring soon. The canal was worryingly unkempt. We wondered at first if we'd wandered onto some disused backwater out of which we'd soon have to reverse. It's badly overgrown, it has narrow passes barely wide enough for a narrowboat because of that overgrowth, and it's appallingly littered.

There were three official Visitor Moorings. The first was very clean and tidy, but offered no form of security, was far too close for comfort next to a multiplex cinema and a MacDonald's, and had no other boats there. The second was very secure but unapproachable because of too-shallow water and too-numerous shopping trolleys. At the third, locals had added their own colourful comments to the RCR signage.

Back in the countryside now, lilies, rushes and reeds made the banks impossible for mooring, beautiful though they were. But eventually, far later than we'd hoped, we found a lovely, remote spot east of the Adam and Eve Bridge. Eight hours after we set out, we tied up for the night.

I phoned Ian Skoyles. Fuel was still leaking from the injectors. He agreed to meet us at 10:00 the next morning at Sneyd Junction, to fix the problem.

Moor and Peace

How very appropriate, here on the Shropshire Union Canal!

We left our very Peaceful Mooring hoping upon hope that the Canal Club boat we'd encountered yesterday had made a very early start, and was moving at least 50% faster than she was yesterday. This was not very charitable of us, I accept, but we do have a schedule to keep. We do need to be on the Wyrley and Essington (aka the Curly Wyrley) by Friday week. And I really do want the poor lady skippering that boat to be doing it better than she was yesterday. For her own sake, and that of her family.

It was a warm day, and building up to be very hot. Swallows darted around the boat. Three of them were seeing off a buzzard, flying at him from all angles as if to confuse him, until he got the message and winged it.

The Shroppie is clearly a superior canal; superior to the Leeds & Liverpool and the Bridgewater. It has Armco for mooring. Miles of it, on banks that aren't overgrown with undergrowth, so that, once again, we can moor pretty much where we want to.

Except that there's the Shroppie Ledge, a mysterious protrusion from the side of the canal, below water level, which gets in the way sometimes when you try to moor, and results in the boat standing out from the back a foot or so. We haven't actually experienced the problem yet, but we have seen lots of boats moored with that gap between them and the bank.

And then there are the wasps. Entirely seasonal, of course, but still a problem. It wasn't so bad today, but yesterday they were buzzing around us in large numbers almost immediately we turned onto the canal. They stayed with us until bridge 27, when they simply disappeared en masse. Even the ones which had been avidly feeding in bowls which had held cake and cream just left. It was strange, as if some natural law forbade their passing beyond that point.

We stopped counting the boats we met, yesterday. This canal is far busier than any that we've been on this yea, and we're probably meeting more in one day now than we were seeing in a week previously.

We spent some time travelling with NB Serenity, getting to chat with them when both of us stopped for a lock. They were on their way to Venetian Marina, where they'd be hanging up their windlasses after six years of living aboard. They were finding life on the canals was getting too much for them as they were getting older, and were stopping while the going wasn't too tough. Wise, but sad.

We've been using less diesel that we'd expect, which is a good thing, of course. But, with about half a tankful still, we decided to fill it to the top again, thinking that this will probably last us now until the end of this cruise. We pulled over at Venetian Marina and filled up. NB Serenity was moored sadly nearby, her owners no doubt psyching themselves up now for moving off her and back onto land.

It was good to meet NB Dabbling this afternoon, albeit for the ten seconds it takes for two boats to pass each other. We were greeted first of all by the lady at the tiller, then by her husband who appeared from below, calling out that he's  a reader of this blog. I got a Tweet from Gerard this evening.

@NBKantara great to sail past a #boatsthattweet, enjoy reading your blog. I was working in L'pool last week and did spot you on the moorings

It's always good to meet folk who read the blog, or have read my book, or whom I follow on Twitter. It makes them far more real somehow!

At Barbridge Junction, we turned left,

passed the start of the Llangollen Canal,

and went on to Nantwich.

A long line of moored craft had left a space for us!

The sunset over Nantwich was phenomenal!

Not Photoshopped!