Friday 19 March 2010

Heading up the Tame Valley.

13 Locks, 3.32 Miles. Now moored at Perry Barr top lock

Last night’s moorings were not the most salubrious so with the weather being in our favour we opted to move on this morning.

Tame Valley 013 The concrete jungle of Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham.

At Salford Junction we turned left underneath the concrete jungle of the motorway interchange commonly known as “Spaghetti Junction” Hundreds of concrete pillars of all heights bearing huge cross beams carrying the M6 and A38(M) in all directions. Contractors were busy carrying out remedial repairs on this massive concrete monstrosity but this didn’t affect the canal.

Tame Valley 014 About time this was replaced BW

Again we had a good run up through the locks passing some of the relics of the old back pumping system used to recirculate and save water. Once away from the motorways it was nice to hear the sound of the birds instead of the drone of motor vehicle’s even though we were passing through residential area’s. At the top of the Perry Barr locks we could look back toward Birmingham which is only a couple of miles away as the crow flies.

Tame Valley 016Perry Barr locks on the Tame Valley Canal.

2153 locks, 4174.81 miles, 87 tunnels, 130 swing bridges and 58 lift bridges since Nov 2006

No comments: