Tuesday 10th July

Compton to Birmingham

Rain all day until the evening.

Set off at 8am and we were at Wolverhampton bottom lock by 9am. Unfortunately someone else must have been up before us as all the locks were full. However sooner than expected we crossed another boat coming down. Then at 1030 Andys friend Andrew arrived having walked down from the station. This speeded our progress and we were at the top lock at noon. Unfortunately the locks have severely damaged the front fender, as the water holds the boat hard against the top gate and then is dragged up it. When I realised this was happening I started to use rope to hold the boat back. It's only 2 years old and hardly used.

Decided not to stop for lunch and press on so that we got to Birmingham City Centre tonight.

We had decided to take the new main line but when we got to Factory locks there was one boat in the top lock and another waiting, so we changed plans and took the old main line. This was quite weedy though most of it was cut weed.

Decided to go down Brades locks and take the Gower branch to get back onto the new main line. When we got to the end of that we found that we had overtaken the boat that had been waiting at Factory locks!  We were now in between the two working boats all the way to the centre.

Moored in Cambrian basin on the floating pontoons. Andrew left us on arrival.

Andy had a voucher code, 2 main courses for the price of one at Strada, so we went to the
one by the canal at the ICC. I had an excellent dessert, Figs poached in red wine and cinnamon.

After that we went to Digbeth to visit the pubs in the National Inventory, unfortunately the White Swan was not open but the Anchor was. I had Marble chocolate stout and Marble mild 6%!