Sunday 29th May 2005
Lapworth Wharf - Birmingham (19 miles, 12 locks)
We made another early start to tackle the rest of the Lapworth flight. The weather was perfect as are the surroundings of this beautiful flight of locks.
We stopped for breakfast after Hockley Heath and then carried on towards Warstock where we intended to stop for water. During our breakfast stop, we were passed by two hire boats, one full of drunken youngsters celebrating someone’s birthday and the other who didn’t want to move the throttle past tick-over. Progress was rather slow, but came to a complete halt at the electric lift bridge at Major’s Green. This was stuck half-way and BW had been called about forty minutes earlier. We decided to have lunch here even though we were only four very slow miles further from our breakfast stop.
BW arrived just as we finished lunch and fixed the problem instantly. The tick-over boat was nowhere near ready so we asked if we could go ahead of them. Unfortunately, the booze-cruisers we already trying to crash their way sideways through the bridge and we had to wait a while for them to try to figure out how to un-stick the boat from the bottom. We followed them slowly zig-zagging towards Warstock, until an older person suddenly appeared from below and took over. They speeded up and left us behind, to our great relief.
We have never experienced any real trouble on our canal trips, but still felt a degree of trepidation approaching Brandwood Tunnel and the stop lock at King’s Norton. There was a lad in his late teens complete with skin-head haircut looking down over the entrance to the tunnel. Assuming the best in everyone, I gave him a friendly wave and he returned with a thumbs-up, so no problem there. On our Avon Ring trip last Easter on a hire boat, we met a large group of young children at the stop lock who wanted to jump on the gunwales to ride from one end of the lock to the other. There were so many of them it was impossible to stop them. They were nice enough kids, but I worried about the safety aspects, liability, insurance, etc.
This time, it was deserted. We had come armed with a bag of assorted toffees to distract them, but if they couldn’t be bothered to turn up, then we’ll just have to eat them ourselves....
We turned right at King’s Norton Junction and headed for the centre of Birmingham. The surroundings were a bit run-down to start with, and at Bourneville we gave Cadbury’s World a miss. A man stood guard over his hire boat while his family went for their fix of chocolate, but there were a couple of police patrolling the tow path. When we caught up with them, they asked if we had seen any trouble and seemed almost disappointed that there were no bandits about. A while later, the boat slowed and the turbulence from the propeller was inviting me on a trip down the weed-hatch (with the engine off and keys in my pocket of course). My attempt to move over to the side demonstrated just how shallow it was at this point, so once the pieces of plastic fertiliser bag were removed from the propeller, I had to reverse off where we had grounded, churning up all sorts of rubbish in the process. The man in the house that backed onto the canal watched in amusement. It’s probably regular entertainment around there.
From this point on, the canal was tree-lined for most of the way and very pleasant past the University and Botanical Gardens. Then suddenly, we seemed to be in the centre of Birmingham and turning up towards Gas Street Basin. All the moorings outside the night clubs were empty - possibly the music pumping out at high volume in the late afternoon was putting people off.
The intention was to moor just inside the Oozell’s Street Loop into which we turned at Old Turn Junction. There was no space left, but while we hovered to consider our options, an elderly chap on a lovely looking boat said we could breast-up alongside. We gratefully accepted, explaining that we would be leaving early and would try not to disturb them. While chatting, I must have mentioned that I would be reversing back to the junction. “No need” they said, “Just follow the loop round”.
We walked to the Chinese Quarter to eat. My Birmingham guide book had listed “The Big Wok” as good value. It looks like a huge canteen, where for £8.99 you go and help yourself to as many courses, as many times as you like. We didn’t do very well compared to some, only managing one plate of starters and one main course each before feeling totally stuffed. We will starve ourselves before hand if we’re ever back here again.
We had a ride on the big wheel, but didn’t have a clue about the landmarks, if there are any (sorry if you’re from Birmingham). A few years ago, I remember the story of the wheel arriving and having the wrong commentary. It had previously been in Paris and was still singing the praises of the Eifel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, etc. I would have preferred that original version.