Thursday 20th September; Austcliffe to outskirts of Stourport
the ragged rascals ran cruised. We may be a bit ragged but I don’t think we are rascals.
It was drizzly when we woke up, but the forecast was for a dry spell this morning and although it was not actually precipitating when we left we had full wet weather gear on just in case. The cupboards and fridge are pretty bare and supplies are needed so we need to move on!
We wound our way round the rocky bends in thankfully calm conditions. It would not have been fun in yesterday’s wind. Last time we came this way we met another boat on this bend, where the canal is narrow and the offside cannot be brushed through! A lot of shuffling was necessary for us both to get round.
Cookley Tunnel was hewn out of the sandstone, with brick arches at the portals because the sandstone is easily damaged – you can rub your hand over the surface and it comes away sandy. However, it is solid enough to have houses on top of it.
In years gone by there was a cliff overhanging the canal – Austcliff Rock – which became unstable and had to be removed. The tunnel is short, with a towpath and wide enough so that the boat should be safe from accidental bangs and scrapes. You emerge to a sharp bend to the left, easily traversed if no-one is coming. The picture doesn’t really show it, but if you approach from the west your boat needs to be on the wrong side of the canal to see if anything is coming, and to get a line to go through. This proves interesting if you are in the tunnel and the oncoming boat is a long one, as happened to us last time, as of course you can’t see them when you are in the tunnel unless they are already in position, in which case you would have seen them before you went in and would have waited. And they don’t know you are there until they hear your horn, because you see their bow long before they can see a thing.
By the time we reached the pretty Debdale lock drizzle was just beginning to mist the air. A boat was coming in at the bottom, so we had a bit of a wait. It’s quite deep, and the overhanging cliff makes it feel very constricted (though it’s not at an angle, unlike the picture).
The rain stayed light for a while as we wound our way towards Kidderminster. The canal’s course is pretty much determined by the course of the river Stour on one side and the red cliffs on the other. We wondered if we might see a kingfisher, as the sandstone looked soft enough for nest holes, but no luck.
By Wolverley lock the rain was steady. If we had been stopping here we would have taken advantage of the Smithy café. Pasties get a bit soggy if you eat them in the rain, but I suppose we could have got some takeaway soup!
But we cracked on, the rain getting heavier all the time. We had heard about another tree down, but it had been cleared by the time we arrived and the men were just pulling the last few bits out of the water. They said a passing boater had cut and pushed it to get past and had made their job a lot harder. Now it was just one more lock then we could stay put at Kidderminster till it stopped. Wolverley Court lock is quite quick, but one of the gate paddles is difficult to reach for a short person. Much too far from the bank to operate, and I didn’t want to stand on the footboard as I would have had to have held on with one hand and hung out over the water to reach, so I had to sit astride the lock beam to wind it up safely.
A big step to the footboard.
At last, with the rain getting steadily heavier, we managed to snaffle the mooring by the entrance to Sainsbury’s. We warmed up with toast and tea, watching the rain hammering down. Eventually it eased off and we went over to Sainsbury’s for much needed supplies, but it started again and we just watched the boats going by, mostly hirers on a schedule poor things, hunched and dripping though one or two waved cheerily. We had a fry-up for lunch, yum. In a short dry spell I took Meg out and discovered excellent recycling bins in the car park, which take everything, so that has made a space in the cupboard.
Then around 3pm the rain really did stop, though the wind was strong and gusty. Kidderminster is a very noisy place with the big road bridge close to the mooring, so we wanted to move on to the patch of country between it and Stourport. First of course is the deep and noisy Kidderminster lock. Look one way and the view is lovely, worthy of a full page picture in Nicholson’s.
Look the other however and it is concrete, noise, traffic and fumes. The canal surrounds in Kidderminster have been adopted by a local group, and I have to say there is a lot less litter around than we have been used to here.
Just a couple more locks now, still with the red cliff alongside though now it’s on the other side of the canal, which crossed the Stour south of the town. There are awkward bywashes which, with the wind, made it difficult for Dave to hold steady while he waited to pick me up, so the centre rope was needed at times. Caldwall lock has bridge and step overkill … I wonder why the little steel bridge was constructed when there was a perfectly good brick and steel one – or perhaps it was the other way round. Anyway, the stone steps up to the brick one are redundant as it’s easier to walk a few feet away and get onto the bridge on the level.
There was no-one on the mooring we have used before. It’s out in the open, away from trees (essential with these winds), and factories and houses too, although there is a noisy road in the distance. First things first – get the waterproofs dry!
Meg was agitating for a walk, so after a cup of tea – after which it started raining again! Dave duly obliged. Along the towpath the hedge stops and there is a steep drop to the Stour, which was in spate – so Meg’s ball was not retrieved when it rolled away down the bank. Dave had taken the umbrella with him but the wind was too strong to use it, so once more dripping waterproofs were hung in the cratch.
We were a little concerned about the state of the Severn when we reach it tomorrow, but there is no point worrying about conditions which will have changed by the morning. The evening continued with intermittent rain and gusty winds, but we were snug inside with the Mikuni running to dry us off.
6½ miles, 6 locks, Cookley tunnel and a lot of rain.
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