Goodbye Birmingham

Modern flats overlooking the canal at Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton top lock

Another long day in mostly sunny weather.  First job in the morning was to walk the short distance to Sainsbury's to stock up with groceries again.  At 9:30 we set off south on the Wyrley and Essington and turned right at Horsley Fields Juction onto the Main Line which took us into Wolverhampton, all at about 500 foot above sea level. The attractive top lock located only a short walk from central Wolverhmpton marks the start of the 21 lock Wolverhampton flight dropping 132 foot from the Birmingham hills.

As usual one of us drove the boat and the other did most of the work on the lock, roles which we swapped over every three locks.  The flight was hard work as we had to fill almost every lock before we could enter and some of the time we were working the locks for a single handed boater in front of us. Fortunately we were helped by the crew of the hire boat behind us which enabled whichever of us was working the locks to walk on ahead to get the next lock ready.  We finally reached the bottom at around 3pm and moored up half a mile from the end of the flight near Autherley Junction on the Staffs and Worcestershire Canal.

Statistics 4.13 miles, 21 locks, 5hr 56min