June has been as mixed with weather, soundscapes, landscapes and emotion as ma month could be, and we are only a couple of weeks in.
We started the month on a high, having travelled from a mooring on the outskirts of a market town in the West midlands in baking sunshine to meet our newly born granddaughter for the first time. The towpath there was paved and full of walkers, runners, fishermen and other boaters. It was busy.
From there we made our way along the wooded Stourbridge Town Arm past houses and former industrial glassworks onto the Stourbridge canal, cruising past rolling green fields of grazing horses. Before long we turned onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, moving through acres of deciduous woodland fringed with pale pink rhododendrons reflected in the water. T- shirts, hats and sun cream were vital to keep comfortable.
The locks are edged with red sandstone, and at Bratch the buildings around are built with the same local stone. Bratch Locks are a unique experiment created by the engineer James Brindley. He opened the three locks as a staircase originally in 1772. Their commercial past required them to have 2 bridges, a toll house and a keepers cottage. Now they are not a staircase, but three separate interlinked narrow locks, and because of the complexity of their water supply, they are only available for use when being manned by Canal and River Trust lock keepers.
In a staircase as Bevan later built at Foxton, and Longbotham at Bingley the locks share gates but at Bratch each lock has its own top and bottom gates and the locks are fed by water from hidden side pounds. Bratch like all the canals we’ve been on recently are narrow locks, designed to save water with a single top gate and mitred double lower gates.
Once through Bratch, which can be a bit of a bottleneck, we headed up through the Staffs and Worcestershire Canal the final stretch through bridge after bridge after bridge to the turning left onto the Shropshire Union Canal at Autherley as fine drizzle began. Through the stop lock (a shallow lock stopping traffic to pay duties to waterway owners as boats moved from one body of water to another).
The stop lock beam has been repaired with a short laminated replacement. I have no idea if it is a permanent or temporary repair but it means that when it’s wet there’s no way to get purchase on the slippery bricks around the lock.
Up then through high sided cuttings covered with trees and evidencing signs of land slips, through tall elegant bridges carrying roads and tracks high above us.
A lock that had been faulty threatened to put our journey on hold but it was mended as we arrived thanks to CRT and we headed through to moor up in driving rain below it under dripping trees on the edge of a busy village.
The next night our mooring couldn’t have been more different. Gone were the wooded cuttings and steep sided banks, the sandstone passages hewn for boats through mellow red rock. Suddenly we were up on Shropshire Plain with a view, when the rain cleared, to The Wrekin and the Welsh Hills beyond. We shared the night with rabbits and badgers, and a sunset that reminded us of the calming qualities of the canals.
The next day we passed again through slender neck-craning bridges, through thickly wooded cuttings and down locks carved from sandstone glistening dark red in the rain we began our descent onto the Cheshire Plain,
We moved from T-shirts and shorts to full waterproofs, to jumpers and jeans. The weather has baked the roof garden, whipped the flowers with bitter winds and drenched them with rain that has been torrential and gentle, drizzle and seemingly never ending.
I blacked the stove thinking I wouldn’t want to light it again for months but the need to dry sopping clothes and warm shivering bodies meant we have lit it this week.
With the boat so far these past two weeks we have travelled 54 miles and through 51 locks (some with the wonderful help of friends and CRT lock keepers), through a single 81 yard tunnel and through weather which has been as diverse as the canals and landscapes we have enjoyed. It feels like we have floated through many worlds in that time.
The Shroppie runs from Autherley Junction 66 miles to Ellesmere Port in Cheshire where commercial traffic headed onto the Manchester Ship Canal. Before then there are junctions with the Llangollen and the Trent and Mersey.
This canal winds its way through a rural landscape. Cows, sheep, small market towns and clustered villages, farmland predominately laid to pasture with some swathes of arable, house martins swooping low over the water around us to catch insects and bushy hedges full of sparrows, blue tits and blackbirds. Ducks, herons, swans and moorhens join us on the canal. The coots seem to save themselves for city waters.
We’ve also managed trains and buses and Shanks’ pony trip outings to regain our car after a very satisfying time without it, and now we will leapfrog it with us for a while. Heading back each day on foot or by bike or bus to fetch it. That way we can respond rapidly if we are needed or wanted by family of all ages, giving us the best of options and peace of mind.
Pickingupducks 