We had a good quiet night in the Ocker Hill branch. We turned right on leaving continuing our journey back to the main line. We went up another 8 locks, even though we were now heading for the lower Birmingham level. The locks are not as deep at the ones at Walsall. We passed the Asda the bloke at the moorings told us about, and boy would it have been a long walk!
At the top of the locks, after a photocall, we turned down the Ridgeacre Branch, which was interesting. As we turned we pulled up lots of nasty black stuff, the water was sort of grey/brown. As we travelled along the arm we had a rainbow of different water colours, ochre, orange, yellow, green, black, and several different mixtures! After the first winding hole the canal got so narrow that now a boat filled the 7 foot gap in the middle you could walk from one side of the canal to the other over the weeds. It was slow going down this narrow bit, but very little rubish so it was easy going. It didn't take long before it opened out again, and soon we were at the end of the branch. Unfortunately someone had built a low level road over the canal here (A41 I think), and so we could go no further. In the garden of a Holiday Inn across the road was the remains of an arm off the original canal, along with a large towpath bridge. We returned to the Wednesbury Old Canal, and headed back to the main line, deep water, and less rubbish. We thought we would also have another detour once on the main line, so we went up the three locks to the old main line (a contour canal). Some parts of this have been covered over by the M6 motorway, which might have been good as it tried to rain on the way up the locks, but nothing came of it in the end. We turned down the engine arm as some bilwildered hireboaters were coming up the three Birmingham end locks at Smethwick.The engine last time we came down it in 1996 was a rubbish strewn dead end, which we had to reverse out of with a 30 ft boat. This time it was rubbish free, deep, and had a sanitary station and winding hole at the end! We returned to the Birmingham level, and on our way we took the scenic route along the old loops of the original contour canal, now bypassed by the new main line. On the Soho branch a fisherman told us we were only the second boat that day, which surprised me considering the number of boats about at the moment. On our way around the smallest of these, Oozells Street Loop, we found an empty mooring, which seem to be in short supply thanks to many boats from the festival also stopping this way. We decided to eat out, and go to the cinema. We eat in the Pizzahut next to the Odeon where we saw Batman: The Dark Knight, Cheers, Mike -- Michael Askin http://shoestring_DOT_zapto_DOT_org/
