The descent from Birmingham centre via the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal couldn’t have been more different to our arrival on the Worcester and Birmingham. Almost immediately we delved beneath the guts of the City. In fact the grotto scenes of Phantom of the Opera could have been made here, the rubbish in the water was upsetting, most of it seemed to be empty bottles of ‘White Storm’ which I assume is a cheap cider. Not a place to be at night!
However the highlight was when I caught my first fish. Jacquie had given me one of those fishing rods that telescope down into a very large pen and when we stopped for lunch in this quite urban area Johnny and John came along and started to fish just behind where we had moored. Jacquie said I should ask them to get me started, but I said size does matter and mine in comparison to their rods was a bit insignificant. To my surprise they said that they had seen these little rods advertised but hadn’t been able to buy one They were really keen to convert me to be a fisherman and expertly wound my line onto the reel, fitted float, weight, and a barbless hook and baited my hook with a couple of wiggle maggots and what do you know I reeled in a fish.
Whilst I was trying my luck with the fish, a chap walked passed and said to Jacquie that he was following our blog exploits and that he was a boater in waiting, I wish you good fortune and hope that wait isn't too long.
The weather had been very warm and sultry and we had just stopped in the last lock of the Aston flight, to see if we could help a couple of guys who had a rope around there prop, when the air was filled with the crash of thunder and then an immediate torrent of rain crashed down. My large diving knife was of some help, but after half an hour they decided they handed it back as they thought it was going to take several more hours of sawing to get it off and they didn’t want to delay us any longer.
The air was now comfortable and we moored at Cuckoo Wharf, just before the Salford junction. This was actually a BW residential mooring, on the opposite side to the towpath, but there was a place by the water point and at 7 pm we thought it unlikely that anyone else would come passed, this was fortunate as there was no other place that we would have willingly moored on this stretch.
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