Cruising the Cut

Last Saturday the weather forecast was for rain all day and we had booked on a Spring Cruise on the canal or Cut, (another word for canal).   I had seen the cruise advertised on Facebook and signed up.  The lovely Brenda from BCNS matched non-boat owners (like us) with boat owners and we cruised on the boat belonging to Alistair and Hannah who turned out to live not too far away from us.

We set out from Tipton in the drizzle but it soon stopped raining.  However it did stay grey and as ever I have a load of photos with grey sky.

There were several narrowboats in convoy and we followed this one.

 

Roger helped with the lock gates.

And no set of photos from me would be complete without the odd brick wall.  These plants grow out of the wall inside the lock despite being covered with water every time the lock fills up.

The view from the lock.

The entrance to Netherton Tunnel

The heron on watch

Inside the tunnel

Coming towards the end of an almost 2 mile tunnel.

Looking up a ventialtion shaft.

Another narrowboat coming towards us

 The light at the end of the tunnel

 Bumble Hole where we turned round and moored for lunch.

The sun even came out for a little while

 We started back.

 The end of the Netherton Tunnel.

For those who are interested here is the route we took.  The tunnel is on a canal that is lower than the canal we started out on which is why you can see that we went over the canal near the tunnel entrance, then turned left three times, came down the locks and up to the tunnel.

The journey back followed the same route in reverse.  We had a lovely time.  At the end we went to dinner at Mad O'Rourke's World Famous Pie Factory where I had an Eeny Meeny Beany Pie.  Yum.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice