Mid-Summer's Day.

Friday 21st June, 2013 at King's Norton Junction in Southern Birmingham.
A rather damp and cool morning for Mid-Summer's Day! However, the rest of the day gradually improved and now, in the evening, the sun is shining in a clear blue sky!
We set off mid-morning and, as the guide books said, the canal is astonishingly pretty, green and leafy, despite the fact that we are in the outskirts of Birmingham.

We stopped at Lyon's Boatyard, a very friendly family-run concern, to fill up with diesel and do a "pump out".

M wanted to get some Camp Coffee and knew that Sainsbury's stocked it - so a little internet research identified a Sainsbury's branch about a mile south of the boatyard in an area of Birmingham known rather curiously as "Maypole". So we moored up MM and set off on foot to the store.  Just as we left MM, another Kingsground boat went past, nb "Voyager" that we had seen at Enslow when we left on 19th May.

Remarkably, and to R's utter disbelief, M did only buy a "few bits", so for once, R didn't have to stagger back to MM laden like a packhorse.

The Brandwood tunnel (352 yards) rather took M by surprise causing her to abandon her lunch, don her shoes and jump off MM very rapidly so that she could leg it over the top. It turned out to be a walk of three parts. The first and last part being through lovely sylvan glades.

However, the middle part was through a huge built-up area of shops and houses bisected by a VERY busy and noisy road with no clear indication of where the path to the canal resumed. M took her life in her hands crossing the road and then using her rudimentary orienteering skills, managed to work out where the path was back to the canal.  She is not too proud to admit she did recruit the help of a coloured gentleman to point her in the right direction!.
Just before King's Norton Junction, there are a pair of guillotine "stop gates", designed to protect the water of the Stratford Canal from being stolen by the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. This was a common practice by the canal companies when they were in private hands.  The gates have been beautifully restored, but are no longer used.

Again the junction is a fascinating and attractive place, although it proved to be very shallow; when R tried to turn MM, she ended up aground at both ends and we had to use the pole to manoeuvre her round.

The water here is black as well as shallow - one would definitely not want to fall in it! M thinks that we may have strayed on to the Styx and is keeping a weather eye out for the ferryman Charon!

Actually the passers-by have been delightful and full of questions. Something curious happens on the towpath: almost everyone greets you, people are warm and friendly, they smile, wave and often stop to chat. Such a contrast when we walked to Sainsbury's and back - no one smiled or even looked at us.

We moored up just south of the junction next to the old Worcester and Birmingham Canal Office that was opened in May 1796 (it's the building in the photo of the junction above).  On the front of the building is a tariff of tolls from 1894.

After we moored up, R did some routine maintenance, including removing rubbish from the prop. Anyone missing a scarf?

Then R cleaned MM while M polished the brass. Finally an excellent supper, the perfect end to a lovely Mid-Summer's Day.
Today: 4 miles, 0 locks and 3.1 hours.
Trip: 140 miles, 125 locks and 117.5 hours.