A Bostin' Blow Through Bandit Country

A big day of it, 8 and a half hours without a by-your-leave or a stop for coffee. 14 locks, three canals, the M6 and the Aston Expressway, and finishing the day digging down past the pilings to find somewhere to anchor the mooring chain. We did the Birmingham run in a one-r. It was a must really, there really is nowhere to tie up from when you cross onto to Union, right out to Solihull. This is one of the Grand Union Main Line sections that was widened for industrial traffic that is long-since gone, and the towpath is lined with huge stone blocks right the way along, preventing the hammering-in of pins. As a consequence it’s a bit of a boating wasteland, and that’s not to mention the lorryloads of dumped rubbish that count for wildlife along the way.

We set off from Curdworth early, and for an hour the city sat stubbonly on the horizon without shifting at all towards us. The only hint that we were making any progress at all was the proximity of the incoming aircraft as they shed height and speed on their final approach to BHX. Then, almost comically, they were behind us and we were suddenly surrounded by brick and tin industrial buildings, and the M6 overpass. This crowd seemed to appear from nowhere, despite clearly having been there all the time.

The turn onto the Junction Canal slid up on us, sidled you might say, and the dog-leg turn needed help from the front as the boat struggled to make the pirouette required underneath the motorway and above the River Tame.

From there it was The Windy City Run all the way, as we were battered by winds from front and side all the way through. Camp Hill gets a bad rap; old-hand boaters will shake their heads and talk sagely about never going that way again, but really it’s an interesting run, and there’s no harm in it.

None of it is pretty in obvious ways, but there is a kind of poetry to it all; the oblique crossings of road and rail, the colonisation of depopulated industrial zones with optimistic displays of leaf and branch in any and all corners. You’ve got to admire the temerity of hardy perennials when it comes to being perennially hardy in all the most awkward places. Well I admire it, at any rate.

As I said in a previous post, I lived round here for a while. It’s a busy, still-industrious if not industrial area, where the locals are hugely inventive, ever busy, and wholly personable. Don’t let the cracks and painted walls detract from it, I’ll take crumbly Brum over shiny London any day.

There is a feel of in-between of this part of town, though; the first heyday of high industrialisation is long gone, and the shape of the future still far from decided. We climb slowly through factory shadow after factory shadow, neat little blocks of canalside houses on the offside, then all of a sudden the sky brightens and the wind ramps up another notch as we are confronted by the junction of the Grand Union Main Line with its hidden lock. Zuzana has to scramble up a wall to get to the lock gates, and the high winds pin the boat to the offside. The problem with climbing over a hundred feet’s worth of locks on a windy day is that all your air pressure related problems just get more… problemy… as you go.

From here we’re on the downswing though, heading South West out of town again. Head-on to the prevailing wind, the next pair of locks are the most difficult; and at one point I am forced to back under a bridge for cover and come out again by rope, hauling the boat in the lee of the hedge to stop myself being blown up the hill and onto the lawn of the Holy Trinity Church at Bordesley.

Locks all done it’s time for a spot of drone boating (i.e. standing on the back deck listening to the drone of the engine for hours). Two hours of long, straight, slightly-dull pound out through Acocks Green (“you wanna see a doctor about that” as we used to say- don’t say this isn’t highbrow stuff) and Solihull hoves into view. There’s nowhere to bloody moor up here, so after watching the effects of the engine being overworked becomes too much to bear (it billows smoke out of the cooling fins when working into the wind), we pull in and I excavate something to wrap the chains round and we decamp into a taxi to get back to Curdworth. It’s done, the big U-turn; we’re back essentially to where we started, but on a different canal. From here a leisurely run down to Warwick awaits, and some seruous boat building.

I’d like to thank Julian and Zuzana for their help this week, without their enthusiasm and windlass prowess (and Julian's Mitsubishi Shogun) I’d still be the wrong side of Brum; Willow and Dora for their company and help on the Coventry run, and to Liz who furnished me with a donation (or payment in advance for work) so I could spend a couple of days away from the coal face. This diversion was a pain, but it’s done now. We’re coming at it from the other side now, but the build can at least get started.

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