Today we made it onto the Shropshire Union Canal. Initially it is not how I imagined, I had thought it would be a very old contour canal, but quite the opposite it is a Thomas Telford canal therefore lots of straight sections with embankments and cuttings. Originally built to go to Liverpool.
It is also very difficult to moor at the side. The concrete construction has a below waterline shelf which means you cannot get into the side. We have found somewhere and are really pleased about that but someone who tried to more next to us couldn't get in. We shall have to remember this spot.
We have cruised for about 10 hours today, and very varied it has been too. We started off in Gas Street Basin at 8 o'clock and cruised through Birmingham out on the new mainline. Highlight of the trip, though it didn't photograph very well, was passing under Smethwick Galton Bridge.
I had to go down the weed hatch on two separate occasions, the first time removing plastic bags a kagoul and goodness knows what else. It was a horrible job. The second time there wasn't much there but we had significantly lost power. We had a couple of incidents of this but after some hard thrusts in reverse everything seemed back to normal for the rest of the trip. Quite worrying when the engine normally goes to two and a half thousand revs but on this occasion would only go to about 1000. We were barely making forward progress.
We came down we came down the Wolverhampton 21, which was hard work as two of the bridges needed Alison to pull the boat right over to the right hand side to maintain our chimney being in contact with the rest of the boat.
We thought once we were off the BCN that all of our problems with rubbish would be behind us. However at the first bridge on the Shropshire Union we came to this.
Tomorrow must be easier.
It is also very difficult to moor at the side. The concrete construction has a below waterline shelf which means you cannot get into the side. We have found somewhere and are really pleased about that but someone who tried to more next to us couldn't get in. We shall have to remember this spot.
We have cruised for about 10 hours today, and very varied it has been too. We started off in Gas Street Basin at 8 o'clock and cruised through Birmingham out on the new mainline. Highlight of the trip, though it didn't photograph very well, was passing under Smethwick Galton Bridge.
I had to go down the weed hatch on two separate occasions, the first time removing plastic bags a kagoul and goodness knows what else. It was a horrible job. The second time there wasn't much there but we had significantly lost power. We had a couple of incidents of this but after some hard thrusts in reverse everything seemed back to normal for the rest of the trip. Quite worrying when the engine normally goes to two and a half thousand revs but on this occasion would only go to about 1000. We were barely making forward progress.
We came down we came down the Wolverhampton 21, which was hard work as two of the bridges needed Alison to pull the boat right over to the right hand side to maintain our chimney being in contact with the rest of the boat.
We thought once we were off the BCN that all of our problems with rubbish would be behind us. However at the first bridge on the Shropshire Union we came to this.
Tomorrow must be easier.
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