Greensforge Lock

Well we are on the move again although the leaves are making it very hard work, particularly at Stewponey Lock. We had to pull the boat out of the lock as we would have still been in there if we had used the propeller only.

Bit of an uneventful day really.

Autumn Colours

Today we did 4.46 Miles and 4 Locks

Statistics so far:-

1005.97 Miles, 698 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Rock Houses

Yesterday we took the bus over to Stourbridge and did a little shop, pity about the rain though. Today was much better and we thought that we would walk up and have a look at the Rock houses; these are houses that were built into the red sand stone that is so prevalent in this area. It turns out that people lived in these places until 1967, the National Trust have restored some of the houses and now look after the site.

Rock house Upper section

Rock house Lower section

Statistics so far:-

1001.51 Miles, 694 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

A visit from friends

Sorry no sooner do I get started again with the blog and then I stop. The reason being we had a visit from David and Ursula, we had a great time despite the heavy rain and made it down past Cookly, winded and came back to Kinver for an evening meal at the Vine. What a friendly pub and the food was good.

This morning we brought the boat up through the two Kinver locks to the visitor moorings near Chance Wood. It was a beautiful morning but it seems to be deteriorating as I write.

Yesterday I had a bit of an accident with my camera I was picking it up to take a ‘lone tree’ picture and the strap got caught snatching it out of my hand and hurling it on to the deck below, fortunately I think that the hood may have saved any serious damage as it took the brunt of the fall. It seems to function correctly and I took the photo below to test it out, it was such a miserable day so not such a good photo.

Staffs and Worcs Canal

Yesterday we did 10.08 Miles and 11 Locks

Today we did 0.77 Miles and 2 Locks

Statistics so far:-

1001.51 Miles, 694 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Stourbridge

Well maybe that should be ‘Stourbridge briefly’, as we went there did some shopping and left. When we got back to the boat yesterday there were three things, we had no water and we had no food, the third was that the shower sealant needed repairing. I did the shower while we topped up the water, it is amazing the difference it makes having a full water tank to the boat handling, it is much easier to control.

I have to say that we were very impressed with the service from Enterprise car rentals, the chap that brought us back to the boat, did just that finding a dirt road that brought us within a hundred yards and then he carried our bags to the boat, how cool is that?

The canal from Stourton junction to Stourbridge is a bit of a mixed bag with at first beautiful countryside up to the Stourbridge arm junction and then not surprisingly you pass through some old industrial factories that are very run down. We were not that keen on Stourbridge, I think that the underlying problem with places that we are not too keen on is traffic. Stourbridge town centre is surrounded by an inner ring road, which we circumnavigated twice in the hire car.

Entering the Stourbridge Canal

looking back towards the Junction

House at the second lock

Evening on the canal

Same spot looking back

Today we did 6.69 miles and 5 Locks

Statistics so far:-

990.66 Miles, 681 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Back Blogging

Sorry I have not been blogging over the last few days. We took a trip home for the weekend and had our usual Ralphy fix and it is now business as usual with normal service being restored tomorrow. Yes I am too tired to do anything today. A one year old gaining new molars and getting us up at 6am would make anyone tired, he seems to like singing with the dawn chorus at least that is what I think it was.

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Chance wood

The woodland that we are moored near is called Chance wood, which is a small ornamental wood planted in the 19th century, it is a Wildlife Trust reserve. We had a better walk around it today to complete the geocache of yesterday. There was no long (5 mile) detour this time as Frances kept me well reined in. Towards the centre of the wood we came across a Victorian Pet Cemetery, which was quite a surprise for us.

It was such a lovely day after the rain of yesterday and we walked into Kinver for some lunch and some shopping, we had intended to do this yesterday but I was determined we go in the opposite direction which as you know we duly did.

Chance Wood

Victorian Pet Cemetery

Kinver

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

I should have listened to Frances

Although it was raining this morning we thought we would go off for a walk and a multi cache was just around the corner, we did the first two clues ok but in heading for the third cache we sort of went wrong after crossing a field and a road and another field and a wood. We came on to a road and I said that it was to the left, Frances said it was to the right. Now I usually have a good sense of direction so that was the way we went. We ended up completely lost despite the GPS, well a GPS tells you where you are but not how to get where you want to go, well ours doesn’t anyway.

When we got back to the boat I downloaded the track we had taking and guess what? We should have gone in the direction recommended by ‘Frances the map’.

Still we had a pleasant walk despite the rain.

Colour in the rain

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Planning our winter cruise

We had another long walk around Kinver after spending most of the morning doing little jobs around the boat. We have been struggling to remove the diesel smell from our earlier spillage; we think we are now making headway with our latest efforts by using bicarbonate of soda. Has anyone had any experience of this? If I have to pull the diesel through again I will be more careful and avoid any spillage, Frances says.

We have been looking at the stoppages and how it will effect our winter cruising. We intend to spend some of the time on the Shroppie and have had conflicting opinions about the winter months on that canal. One boat said that it was, depending upon where you are either too dark because of the trees or too windy in the more exposed areas, we still intend to stay with our original plans, and any advice would be much appreciated.

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

Another Bike Ride

Yes there is no stopping us, we did another bike ride today, well we are having some glorious weather, unlike in the summer. We are now surrounded by a fair few other narrowboats (sorry I put that in for Granny Buttons), that’s because we have very good moorings and the location is idyllic. I suppose with the good weather we are having it is not surprising that there are lots of boats moving around, although I have to say that it is much quieter than the Oxford. In some ways it is similar to the Oxford in that it plays a merry dance with a river, the Oxford has the Cherwell and the Staffs and Worcs has the Stour. Sometimes we have the river on the left and at other times it is on the right, the canal is above the river and so aquaducts over the river now and again.

As usual we incorporated a couple of Geocaches in our trip out.

River Stour

Our current location

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.

So where did the day go?

We were up at eight as usual but someone must have turned us off because in the next minute it was Three Thirty and we were waiting for the washing machine to finish its wash so that we could go for a bike ride.

Okay in the meantime we had somehow travelled up past Kinver and moored at a lovely place across from the edge of a wood. I had made the daily bread and Frances had made some lovely home made soup, I know she doesn’t normally do this as that is usually my domain. Put it this way, she has not been very impressed with my last couple of soup efforts. In my opinion her effort was very similar with maybe a hint more salt, tut tut. We had also made inroads into proof reading the short story book that Mich is writing whilst waiting to obtain gainful employment in New Zealand.

The washing machine finishes its business so off we go through the beautiful Staffordshire countryside, who would believe that we are just outside of a highly populated area of the midlands. I only managed a few photos as it was a bit of a job stopping and getting the camera out, and when I did some of the photos were out of focus. We went passed a garden centre with such a marvellous canal side garden, I just had to photograph it, unfortunately I did not have my wide angle lens and the photo doesn’t do it justice.

We are moored just north of Hyde Lock.

Cottage

Garden Centre Garden

A ‘Lone Tree’ group

Today we did 2.41 miles and 2 Locks

Statistics so far:-

983.97 Miles, 676 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnels.