Small Bears on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal

I'm going to continue the story of our journey around the West Midlands with what happened when we were on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

The morning after we had seen our friend Tour Guide Ted again, we cruised down to the junction at King's Norton, where you can join the Stratford Canal and go to Stratford-on-Avon, or take another junction before you get there, and join the Grand Union Canal towards Warwick and London.

 

We stayed on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and, soon after the junction, we reached the Wast's Hill Tunnel, which is almost as long as Harecastle, but wide enough for two boats to pass.  Polar did the steering, as the tunnel was also high enough for her not to bump her head!

We did have to pass another boat but, as we both slowed right down and were very careful, there were no bumps or scrapes, and we were through in about forty minutes and out into a lovely wooded cutting.

This section of the canal was very pretty with lovely views across the countryside.  We were thinking of going up to sit on the roof after the tunnel, but we didn't have far to go until we moored.

Polar and Grizzly had booked Uppie into a marina at Alvechurch, as they had to go home for a little while, and we were being allowed to stay on the boat.

"Be good bears," said Polar.  "And be careful if you open the side hatch to give seeds to the ducks, as there is a big swan living here too."

We had lunch with Polar and Grizzly before they set off for the station.  That afternoon we fed the ducks and Hanley made friends with the big swan, then we played Whizzo again.  We had apple, nuts and raisins for tea and, before bedtime, Hanley gave us a lesson about British human history, as he had been reading Polar's old Ladybird history books.

 

He told us Britain was invade by the "Roamings", who got their name because they roamed from Italy to lots of other countries, then the "Sacksons", who wore sacks, and then the Normans, who were all called Norman, but that's not quite what it says in Polar's books. 

We read some more of our books and played games the following day, until teatime, when Polar and Grizzly came back to the boat, bringing oatcakes for supper!  Huddlesford hadn't tried them before and thought they were very tasty.

We had a short cruise first, along another pretty section of canal and through a short tunnel, to take us to the top of the Tardebigge flight of locks.  It rained very heavily at one point and Polar and Grizzly pulled up on some mooring rings, but a lady came out of a house and told them they had to move, as the rings belonged to a boatyard, even though there was plenty of room and they only wanted to stop overnight.  We gave her hard stares.

The next morning started rather damp, so we settled into the cratch while Polar and Grizzly got ready to work through more than thirty locks!  Polar pointed out a Transport Trust plaque at the top lock to Hanley, who could tick another one off of his list, as he wants to visit every one.

 

Polar had worked us down through the first five locks when she spotted two Canal and River Trust volunteers walking towards us.  They were checking to see if there were any disabled or solo boaters coming down but, when they had checked that there were not, they started helping us.  This was brilliant, as it meant the lock ahead of us could be prepared and opened ready for us, and we could make much faster progress.

As we went down the flight, there seemed to be more and more water about.  The volunteers found out that engineers had requested extra water further down the canal, but rather more than was needed had been released.  Grizzly, then Polar, had to be very careful steering Uppie across the pounds between the locks, as there were strong currents from the by-washes.

With Frank and Brian's help, we were down the flight surprisingly quickly, taking only three and a half hours to reach the pound above the Stoke locks (not our Stoke, but Stoke Prior).

 

Here we stopped for a lovely pizza lunch, and Hanley Bear had a little sip of Grizzly's beer.  Then we had six more locks to work through - or rather our humans did - to get to the small town of Stoke Prior.

Stoke Prior is the nearest place on the canal to the town of Bromsgrove, and Uppie was built by a firm called "Bromsgrove Boats".  Grizzly and Polar hoped that they might find out more about them along this stretch of the canal.

We stopped for the night at Stoke Prior and, in the morning, Polar and Grizzly walked over to the boat yard to see what they could find out.  One of the engineers there told Grizzly that Bromsgrove Boatbuilders were based in a nearby industrial estate, but only built four boats there before moving to a different base and changing their name.

"I wonder what happened to the other three boats, and if they are still on the canals around here?" I said to the other bears.  We decided to look out for other boats shaped just like Uppie, although Polar said they might not all have been the same, if the people who commissioned them wanted them to be bigger or smaller, or laid out differently inside.

That afternoon, we stopped for nap time with a very good view of the main line from Bristol to Birmingham, hoping to see a big freight train or even a steam special, but we were out of luck.

Polar and Grizzly had another flight of locks to work us through, including one with a cottage beside it and the most beautiful rose garden, as we were heading for the junction with the Droitwich Canals at Hanbury.

Once we were through the locks, we bears wondered if we could go up on the roof again, although we only had three life jackets and five bears!

"If we take turns to sit on the roof, we could share the life-jackets," I suggested.  "I think mine would fit you, Huddlesford."

Although Huddlesford is taller than me, he is not too much bigger around the chest and tummy, and my life-jacket fitted him perfectly well.

 

So Huddlesford and Hanley ran through the boat to the stern, and Polar lifted them up onto the roof.  Endon decided that, although there was a jacket for him, he would stay with Waverley and me.

Hanley and Huddlesford enjoyed their time up on the roof, but came back to check on the rest of us after an hour or so, when we were almost at our mooring for the night.

"We've had a great idea," Hanley explained.  "Because it's quite cramped in the Bear Basket at night, we're going to ask Polar if she can make Sonning's old bed into a bear bed again, then we can take it in turns to have a bed of our own, and everybear else will have more space in the main basket."

And that is what we did, which meant we all had much better sleep and were ready for lots more adventures the following day.