The BCN

From the joys of "Merry Hell", and a brief visit to Sainsburys (thankfully on the canal side of the complex), we proceeded along the Dudley Canal.  The Birmingham Canal Network (BCN) is a rabbit warren of canals.

The Dudley No 1 & No 2 canals are in the bottom left corner of and bottom centre of this little map.  At the "end" of the Dudley No 1 canal is Blower's Green Lock, and immediately afterwards is the junction with the No 2 canal.

Straight ahead are the 3 Parkhead Locks which lead to the Dudley tunnel.   Only unpowered boats can go through the Dudley tunnel, so we went round to the right and onto the No 2 canal.

Along the towpath are a variety of different signs with various facts about the canals.

This one is a mile marker - "Blowers Green 1/2 a mile; Bumble hole 2 miles".

"Lloyds proving house tested the great chains and anchors for Hingleys and the surrounding area.  Once their strength was proved they would be hauled out and lifted onto wagons by massive steam crane, the tracks can still be seen by the canal."  

"In the 1900s a visiting circus of elephants were found frolicking in the canal"











There are still some of the old cast iron bridges covering the entrances to old, now disused arms.

At Windmillend the Dudley No 2 canal reaches a cross roads.  To the left is "Bumblehole Branch", which now is home to a few  residential narrowboats.

Straight on in the Netherton Tunnel (which runs parrell to the Dudley tunnel, but can be used by motorised boats) (see next posting).

To the right is a 2 1/2 mile long dead end branch, which goes down to Halesowen.  The branch itself is unremarkable, other than it is full of rubbish, it has a pleasant little marina at the end, and it has an unusual tunnel.

When we left the marina and were heading towards the Netherton tunnel, and after we had been through Gosty tunnel we realised we had picked up something nasty around the prop.  It transpired to be a full tyre.  Some how it had managed to get over the propeller blades and the only way to remove it was for poor Gordon to get into the canal and stretch the tyre over each blade in turn.

Our liking for the BCN was dwindling. 

The marina, as I said is pleasant, and small.   When entering the marina, the boaters are greeted by the young lad in the photo below.  As a visitor, the marina welcomes you and invited us to stay for up to 7 days for free, plus a small charge for electric.

The tunnel which must be ravelled through to get to the marina is the 577 yards long, Gosty Hill Tunnel.  When we first arrived at the tunnel, we saw this entrance

It looks nice and high, and there is nothing to suggest we couldn't proceed with our tall exhaust on.  However as we got a short way in we found the tunnel was quite a bit lower, and we had to reverse out in order to change the exhaust and remove the bike.  On our second attempt we found . . .

Which is not something we've met before in a tunnel!