Escape from the BCN

29th & 30th July

No sooner had I finished the last blog post than we had a couple of calls on our good will. The first was straightforward; a Black Prince boat, Felicity, came in to tie in front of us, and in the course of doing so, dropped one of their mooring pins into the cut.

I was just finishing off the blog, so Sheila went out with the magnet, and I joined her as soon as I was free. It took a while to find it, mainly because they'd lost track of just where the boat had been when the pin went in (so easy to do).

When I finally tried casting a good bit forward of where the boat had ended up, I found the thing on the second attempt. They were ever so grateful, but as we were standing nattering, the rain started and we all ran for cover in our respective boats.

Later in the evening, as I was starting to cook dinner, there came a knocking on the side of the boat. This proved to be a beggar, looking for the price of a cup of tea. He had some sad tale to tell, a bit hard to make out through the slurred words, but he seemed very satisfied with the couple of quid I shelled out, and lurched off into the murk.

Later still, it fairly thundered down for a good couple of hours, so I hope he was able to find some shelter. Despite the thunder storm, the night remained very muggy, and neither of us slept well. At least this made it easy to make an early start, as we wanted to get down both Delph and Stourbridge locks, and find a mooring in the basin at the end of the Town Arm.

Sheila got on the bike, and we made good time down the Delph "nine" (in fact eight) locks. They were easy to work, and we had some help with a couple, not from John, the well known huffler around here, but from another guy, Bill, who looked a lot like the night before's beggar. He had his own windlass in his belt, but at eight in the morning he was also drinking from a can of strong lager which he stowed in his jacket top pocket between swigs.

There was a lot of water coming down the flight, which posed a problem at the bottom. Even with the top paddles open on the bottom lock, when I drew the gate paddles of the lock above, water started cascading over the locksides. Soon Sheila was wading above the height of her boots in order to get to the balance beam, and it was streaming down the towpath beside the lock and into the cut at the bottom. Once she'd got the top gate open, she drew a bottom paddle, and had to wait quite a while for the level in the pound above to come under control.

Once through Black Delph Junction, we set off along a seriously grotty bit of canal, both scenically and in terms of the state of the water. It was one of those rare bits of decayed urban canal which conforms to the stereotype of a stinking ditch held by those who don't know the real wonders of the waterways.

We had to stop to remove some sacking from the prop at one point, but at last made it to Leys Junction and the top of the Stourbridge 16. Sheila had a problem with the top lock here – there was so much junk in the water it was difficult to open the top gate, and then it refused to close against the cill after I'd put Sanity in.

A bit of juggling with it and prodding around with the short shaft finally got it to seal, and we set off down the flight.

It's a real shame, the 16. If the locals would only care for it a bit, it would be as nice to work up and down as Atherstone, say, but all the houses turn their backs on it with high fences, and the water remains full of crud, though not as bad as in the length above.

Sheila had a chat with one old guy as she waited for a lock to fill. He agreed that it was a disgrace, but explained that although some of the locals did try to clean it up, the indifference of most and the vandalism of a few meant that it soon reverted back to its current state.

Further down we did see one guy walking along with a litter picker and two large black plastic sacks. Only thing was, when Sheila first saw him, he was just chucking the litter into the cut, and only started putting it in a bag when he saw us watching. Later on, we met him again coming back up the flight, this time only carrying one sack. A couple of locks further down, there was a full black bag floating in the water...

You do hear tales of problems with aggressive youths around here, but we didn't have any particular problems, although it was late morning by the time we reached the bottom. Here we made the turn onto the Town Arm, and after thirty minutes steady boating along a much more pleasant stretch, found ourselves in the terminal basin. On the way we saw two kingfishers (or the same one twice), so the water quality is clearly not too bad.

We were made welcome by the Stourbridge Canal Trust who operate the basin, and had a mooring for the night without any difficulty. It's a 10 minute walk uphill from the basin to the town centre, which has a decent range of shops including a Waitrose.

Mooring outside the basin is not recommended, apparently, and it was certainly quite noisy overnight, especially when the pubs and clubs started chucking out. Indigo Dreaming, however, has recently reported finding a couple of boats who'd spent the night on the rings outside, without any trouble.

This morning we had a relaxed start, then Sheila steered back to the junction and we turned down the final section of the Stourbridge. This is indeed one of the most beautiful bits of canal we've ever cruised, well up there with the Caldon and the Llangollen, although quite short. Even if you've no desire to see Netherton Tunnel or the BCN, it would be well worth your while to come up the easy four locks at Stourton and cruise this bit into Stourbridge and back.

Altogether, it took a bit under two hours to get to Stourton Junction, where we've tied between the bridge and Stewponey Lock.

We've now got a week to kill, as we want to be at Autherley on Friday the eighth. We had planned to take our time getting there, or to go past onto the Shroppie and make the run up to Brewood, but we've decided (plan C then) to go on down to Stourport again. It is another gorgeous bit of canal, and it will just neatly take up the time.