A dead end to . . . .

Nowhere somewhere

Hi There

As our eventual mission is to cover the entire network, we need to travel up all the dead ends knowing that we'll need to double back when we get there.

All's not bad though when you come across places like Anglesey Wharf at the end of the line, but that's to do with the blog title so needed to slip it in first and will just quickly rewind a few days to get us to where we are.

Firstly, I'm pleased to say that we're a bit more back with our normal travelling regime and in the last ten days we've cruised for just five hours and the weather has been glorious. Well glorious as in sunny days, but mid range temperatures and a bit of a breeze has made it a bit cool at times, but hey, anything but rain is good.

We've only really just started out on the Birmingham Canal Navigation's (BCN) part of the network and whilst there has been some built up parts that we've just traveled to get through, there have been some nice scenic places to moor inbetween. I think I read somewhere that these navigation's cover a hundred or so miles of canals so should keep us interested for a few months yet and so far so good.

One of the walks we found was around Hay Head Woods at Longwood Junction on the Rushall Canal that seemed to cover a fair old area and many of the paths (as seen here) were lined with Wild Garlic.

Just up from here was another nice place to walk around called Park Lime Pits and . . . .

'Mums pointing that photo thingy thing at us again so make sure you sit up straight and look forward or we'll be here for ages'

And Benji ready for a snooze after a hard days work walk.

So another day another mooring spot that found us next to Clayhanger Common near Brownhills, although we were a little cautious as we were a bit closer to civilisation with quite a bit of passers by so only did a quick half hour walk around this one before setting off the next morning.

Now back to Anglesey Wharf. Coming into the basin it didn't look like there was going to be anywhere to moor, and the approaching canal didn't unfortunately offer up any particularly special spots so we thought it would just be a quick stopover.

The only possible place in the basin was in the water inlet from the reservoir above that you can see to the left of the house in this picture, but we weren't sure if it would be deep enough.

Luckily the water was  though so we were happy to reverse back slowly whilst being able to keep an eye on the depth of water.

It was only when we were almost up to the (possible) mooring point that we saw mooring rings so hopes increased and yes . . .

enough water, so safely in for the next few days.

Looking down from the dam above with . . . .

the reservoir called Chasewater behind. This took about an hour and a half to walk round and found adjacent to this was Chasewater Country Park

With trains and

Deers.

We've also had a birthday recently as Binks reached the grand old age of seven. Birthday presents came in the form of a bone type treat that Nicky brought and a boiled egg, the latter being one of his favourite treats although these are few and far between.

We've moved on from Anglesey Wharf now and heading up another dead end at this junction that used to service a colliery.

And yet more good walks in the shape of Persall Common this time.

Oh and remember I said that the water in the basin at Anglesey Wharf was pretty clear, well, okay, maybe a bit of an understatement.

So we're just on the outskirts of Walsall now and heading towards Wolverhampton that we'll do over the next three or four days as there seems to be some recommended safe mooring spots along the way so we shouldn't have to do it in one hit. We are then apparently coming across the Wolverhampton 21 (according to a chap we were talking to whilst doing a Tesco shop at Brownhills) that's a flight of 21 locks in the space of two miles, but that was on page 50 and we hadn't looked that far ahead so Nicky, there's some exercise heading your way ☺.

And so in signing off, 

Day 815 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat - 1603 miles, 847 locks and 829 cruising hours further on from when we started.