Birmingham is underlining to us the importance of canals that are navigable. These were once the highways of industry as boats plied back and forth with coal and wood, iron and chemicals, pottery and products of all sorts. Now they are ribbons of nature, wending their way through the the Black Country, unexpected but genuine havens for wildlife and flora.
We joined the BCN (Birmingham Canal Network) from the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. It’s a canal we haven’t travelled the whole distance of before. Sunshine helped as did the its gentle upward move through the Curdworth Locks. Rural landscapes surrounded us until the works for HS2 laid bare what were once fields.
Our first night was tucked behind what turned out to be a pub with a Fun Factory, but it was remarkably quiet apart from ubiquitous Canada geese. Here once more the canal can run alongside busy traffic-packed roads and industry, but still provide peace and quiet to humans and nature.
From Minworth we carried on climbing up, moving through Spaghetti Junction, and on 24 more locks, up into the heart of Birmingham.
Wildlife and flora proliferate for most of this watery journey, only ceasing for a bit as the canal makes its way under office blocks where the main thing to look at is graffiti reflections in the water.
Going through any city our boat home seems to act like a magnet for people passing by, Tourists, residents, and children all want to ask us questions, and making our way slowly up locks, waiting for them to fill always gives us an opportunity to chat. A man from Doncaster was delighted to hear we had passed through the famous sliding Vazon railway bridge at Keadby, and was then happy to help our passage into Birmingham by giving a stubborn gate an extra push.
A lady from Kenya wanted to know how we could live on a boat on a canal – how did we shower, go to the toilet, do our shopping? Questions that we are asked so often the answers are easy. In our shower, on our onboard toilet and just like your do,we moor our home and head to the shops. She also wanted to know how to get to abroad Street and seemed astonished when I had to pull out my phone to find the answer. I had to explain we were strangers to Birmingham like her, but she found the concept of boat travellers being new to a place hard to comprehend until I explained we travel all over.
After a surprisingly peaceful night in the heart of the city and a Deliveroo Indian meal, the sight of an inflatable boat with security on board plus police vans made our hearts sink. The two on the boat confirmed they weren’t on a training exercise and we began praying someone had not lost their life in the water. It seemed though that they were involved in a security operation for someone of importance, although we never found out who they were protecting as we headed away from the centre.
We also tried to make it to the first of our IWA Silver Propellor destinations – not straightforward, not what we hoped, but more on that in another post. Not everything can always go according to plan and tomorrow is another day. It is good to be discovering new places and seeing new sites.
The past is integral to the canals of the BCN, from the beautiful iron bridges to the grids in brick bridges that let fire fighters lower hoses to fight fires with canal water.
Within a few miles the canal network becomes a verdant ribbon running through former industrial heartlands. The architecture alongside is varied but the wildlife is clearly thriving. Workboats are busy scooping tonnes of cloying weed from the waters which will help their survival, and makes our passage easier.
As we celebrate the richness of our natural world brought to so many of us in unforgettable programmes made by the remarkable Sir David Attenborough, we are hugely grateful to be able to be immersed in the prosaic wildlife of the canals, watching the next generations thrive here, and absorbed in the daily struggles of the natural world all around us.
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