Once again I apologise for the delay in posting but the Ashby Canal does not seem to be sympathetic to bloggers. I have just about managed to get this one away.
After an uneventful night we were ready to go about 09:45. A boat had just gone passed heading to the top of Farmers Bridge Locks. It turned out that he wasn't going for water, nor did he start down the locks. Helen was dispatched to see what the score was. It turns out that he was waiting for a friend to help him down the locks so he allowed us to pass ahead of him. As we passed I realised it was Andrew Denny on 'Granny Buttons'. It was his blog that I was reading before we bought our own boat and would have loved to have styled my blog on his but was not nearly good enough. We were to meet later.
This was our view looking back to Old Turn before we left. A lovely day for working locks.
No.1 Daughter was acting as tutor to Stephen as he had never been on a boat, or worked a lock previously. It was to be a baptism of fire, and he did very well, and saved me a lot of effort too!
We worked well as a team and were passing down quickly and meeting a few boats on the way up. This is looking back from I think No.11 Lock to see the BT Tower. It was completed in 1965 and is 500ft high. It is square in profile unlike the London one, and measures have had to be taken to ensure that it remains stable in high winds. Any large movements would cause trouble for the microwave links from the dishes. It is home to peregrine falcons and they have been on a camera since 2010.
Just after the road bridge after the bottom lock is this art work that is so true.
Here we are heading to the top of the Aston Locks and just about to pass under the Barker Bridge, dated 1842. It is thought to have been constructed by the famous iron canal bridge builder Horseley. It a listed building Class II. In the distance are new buildings that seem to be part of the Birmingham University building boom, and seem to be student accommodation. Presently there seems to be a crisis in the funding of the Universities so I'm not sure what will happen here.
When we got to the top of Aston Locks Helen discovered that all the locks had the bottom paddles lifted. It was either vandals with a windlass, or C&RT were running water down. The first pound was low so I ran a couple of locks of water through and then headed down. Helen headed down and was ages the locks to drop the paddlers ahead of us and meet up with the C&RT blokes. She disappeared from sight despite it being a straight run and was ages. Amy was getting very worried about her but eventually she came ambling back not realising our worries. We soon got down with no water worries and the above photo is of us leaving the bottom lock.
We were soon at Salford Junction and heading down the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal with the M6 for company. Stephen had a go at steering too and I'm sure he will get to be confident and enjoy it if he comes back.
We filled up with water at the Minworth Locks and headed towards Curdworth. We called it a day just after the old arm (winding Hole) to Minworth Waterworks that you can see on the towpath side in the photo above. We were just short of the Cuttle Bridge Hotel.
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