On to Walsall

Monday 6th September 2021

After a quiet night with no calls from hospitals for blood bike support, we set off in sunshine, a relief after a couple of weeks of grey gloom, with not a glimpse of sunshine through the unbroken cloud.

We cruised along doing ‘fish watch’ in the clear water of this little used canal, unless of course, it was bank to bank thick weed which was yet again problem of the day. It was continually clogging the propeller especially when it contained plastic bags. The weed could be thrown off by using a burst of reverse but the plastic bags need to be removed manually. Occasionally there were excellent beds of lillypads which were in bloom.

 

Back to Brownhills where we moored outside Tescos for a wander around town and a food shop. The adjacent shopping mall that was ‘closing down’ last time we came here was still there and dilapidated. It’s due to be pulled down but who knows when. Tesco were doing their bit for the wellness of the locals, with a Covid vaccination bus and a breast screening unit in the car park.

 

The canals here continue to be more convenient than the local council tip – after all, they charge for a lot of things now. At one point we kept seeing what looked like pigeon carcasses floating in the weed and then we came across a canal side garden with loads of pigeon sheds in the garden.

We continued on along the Wyrely and Essington canal to Birchills junction where we turned south onto our target of the week, the Walsall locks – a stretch of canal not marked on Jannock’s map so in need of doing. The visitor moorings at the top lock did not look inviting.

 

After passing through the top lock we met the only other boat of the day, a CaRT weed collecting boat that was destined for the Wyrely and Essington.

The operator asked what the weed had been like on our travels, we told him about Rushall. He did not understand his managers priorities as he had just completed the Perry Bar flight and so while he’s been sent to do the Wyrley & Ess, all the weed on the Rushall will be coming down onto Perry Bar. An own goal.

 

Out of the bottom of the locks and we just had time to admire the modernisation of the Victorian wharf buildings and the mechanical fish before we turned into Walsall basin and moored up for the night on the pontoons. CaRT have placed a large inflatable ball in the basin to warn idiots that the water was deep, it made us think we were extras in the Prisoner (only relevant to old people) The bars were relatively quiet and soon closed to allow us a very peaceful nights sleep.

 

G&B