Bumble, Boshboil, Blowers and batteries. Blimey!

We were going very far today but we did get on quite early. I had a nice chat with a couple and they gave me some 'useless facts'. Facts are never useless but I haven't been able to confirm them yet. He told me that the hill behind Cobb's Engine House was just short of being a mountain and that the church up there is the highest Church of England church that is still in use, and the strangest one of all was that West Bromwich Albion's Hawthorn's ground is the highest in UK football. I wonder.

Helen had got Amy to bring me a flag when she came at the weekend and I have now put it up. I'm sure that somebody will say that we should be flying the Red Ensign but there are so many getting it wrong all the time that one more wont make any difference. Yes it is the East Riding of Yorkshire flag. (Made in Taiwan!)

We didn't get to explore the whole Bumble Hole Park. It consists of ponds, basins and arms. This is the pond that lies next to the Bumble Hole Arm. Behind the flag above to the left is the entrance to the Boshboil Arm. The area seems to be well used and is very well maintained with very little litter.

As well as nail making the Netherton area was well known for  chain making and in 1820 Hingley and Sons were making anchor chains. They became famous for making the 15.5 ton anchor and the chain for the Titanic which took 20 shire horses to move to the rail yard. They also made the anchors for the Lusitania. I'm sure that they didn't concentrate on those ships that were lost at sea under strange circumstances

As we approached Park head Junction where the branch to the Dudley Tunnel leads off is this old arm that led off by two locks to cut the corner off. I was shaping up to head to the left but the open route is to the right.

The canal skirts Netherton Hill with a the church standing guard. Coal mining had taken place in the area since the fourteenth century and actually continued until the 1970's when there was open cast mining on the side of this hill. In Victorian times this view would have been very different indeed.

Here at Park Head Junction we are on the service mooring taking water. We have come down the Dudley No.2 Canal. The Dudley No.1 Canal comes up the Blowers Green Lock on the right and heads up the other three locks to the south end of the Dudley Tunnel.

This is the sort of signpost that has to be read at a maximum of 4 mph rather than 30 or 40 mph in a car due to the amount of information contained.

We were soon at The Waterfront where we were going to moor for the day. The plan was for Helen to go shopping at the Merry Hill Centre. She would enjoy that without me tagging along. That would give a period of time when I could replace the batteries as everything could be shut down. The old batteries are not holding their charge at all now. We bought some at Midland Chandlers on special at Mercia Marina. I really have work to do in the battery space but have put this off until Helen goes Home next week and I have a week on my own. I'm pretty sure that the set up of these batteries is not the best. I think that ideally the take off of the positive should be from the opposite end of the bank to the negative. However this would mean a cable of over 1 metre long so I wondered if the loss of power over the length would not compensate for the increased efficiency of the new set up. I need professional help in the end.

This is how my batteries are wired up, but these are the old ones. The one on the left is the starter battery. Amazingly once I had swapped the batteries over and connected every thing up again everything seemed to be working. I hate dealing with electricity as I have never understood it and if I can't see it I can't fathom it.