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Stourbridge Canal Festival 2009
Another trip on the train today took me to the Stourbridge Canal Festival held at the Bonded Warehouse, and along the canal side. There were lots of people there and it was starting to get crowded as I left. I spotted the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society (BCNS) stand proudly selling the Waterways Routes range of DVDs. I hope they do well. 
Posted on Sunday, 18 October 2009 at 12:11 Comments (0)
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It was an early start for me on Thursday to catch the train to Manchester, then the bus to Fairfield to reach lock 65 of the Rochdale Canal.
This was the meeting point for Epiphany and Gypsy Rover who were to descend the Rochdale Nineteen locks into Manchester. BW staff would meet them at lock 65 to unlock the gates and let them through, then help from time to time during the passage before reappearing to unlock lock 83 to let them out at the bottom.
Most of the journey was uneventful, just a little hard work at times. Some of the locks have only one paddle – and have only had one paddle since reopening so they were a little slow to operate.
There was a little rubbish in the canal resulting in the occasional trip down the weed hatch, but no worse than other urban areas. Derek was sceptical when Dot said the boat was becoming impossible to control and there must be something around the propeller.
Derek tried steering and announced that "Dot might be right".
As soon as the boat was in the lock he opened the weed hatch and he was still there when the lock was empty and was towed out by John on Epiphany.
The photo shows the pile of rubbish removed from the propeller when he was only half way through. There was just as much more to come off the propeller.
Eventually closing the weed hatch and looking at the large pile of rubbish he announced that "Dot was right".
So, 15th October 2009 will go down in history as the day Derek announced that Dot was right ;-)
The other problems centred around the excess of water flowing down the canal. The paths along both sides of the canal were flooded in two of the pounds, although the weirs at the bywashes were clear of rubbish – so either the weirs are built too high, or the paths too low.
A few of the locks were difficult to operate when the water was coming in the top faster than the paddles could let it out of the bottom but we eventually managed to open all the gates.
I don’t know what has happened at lock 73 but the end of lock beam nearest the camera has been sawn off, making it rather short and hard work to push it open.
3 boats worked down, and 2 boats worked up so it was a busy day on the Rochdale Canal.
A little detour on the way home today took me to Todmorden station and then to the Rochdale Canal.
Walking upwards I soon caught up with Gypsy Rover and Epiphany who were heading towards Walsden.
The broad locks are a little heavy, with some of the paddle gear rather stiff so they all appreciated another pair of hands.
There’s great views of the Pennine scenery as the canal climbs up through the narrow valley and the Rochdale Canal is the only one to cross the Pennines without a summit tunnel.
That’s why there’s so many locks and, being a broad canal, they are all broad locks making them just that bit harder to work.
After being treated to lunch at Grandma Pollards Fish and Chips shop – and amazing place – I headed home.
« Windsong |
An opportunity to cruise a little nearer home today.
Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats were cruising from Bath to Bristol and I had the opportunity to accompany today.
This gave me the chance do a little filming for some publicity material and to see a stretch of river that I’ve never seen before – the Bristol River Avon, not to be confused with the Stratford River Avon or any of the other River Avons.
I caught the train to Bath when I was welcomed aboard and cruised with them to Bristol.
They stayed breasted up throughout with Neil steering the motor and with Corinne also steering the butty at the tighter turns on the river. The butty’s tiller can simply be left in the centre on the straighter sections with the steering done entirely from the motor.
At Keynsham Lock there was a little excitement when the boat coming out of the lock lost its drive.
Fortunately Neil was able to manoeuvre the hotel pair away from the landing stage for the other crew to haul their boat out with the ropes.
The journey was unusually exciting for narrowboat cruises with lots of rowing boats, several groups of yachts on the river and a surprisingly large number of boats moving in all directions once we reached the Harbour at Bristol.
It was a great day out and I was well looked after with their regular guests and I left them safely moored in Bristol Harbour.
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