25th of April 2016. Birmingham.

After a weekend of home visiting we left Alvechurch on Monday morning heading towards Birmingham. It was really cold for April, windy and showery; coats, hats and waterproof trousers all needed. We stopped for water and a Scooby walk at Hopton before pressing on through the long Wast Hills tunnel. It took about 40 minutes to get through this time. The greenness on the south side was a great contrast with the north side and the outskirts of Birmingham.  The water changed colour too; from the usual sludgy green to almost black.

Entering the Wast Hills tunnel.

We had planned to stop at Bournville and the Cadburys factory to have a look around but it was all a bit grim. The visitor moorings didn't appeal at all, lots of concrete and graffiti and signs warning about thefts, plus a railway between the canal and the Cadbury site. We decided to give it a miss and push on to Gas Street Basin.

The glimpse we got of Bourneville.

Gas street is where the Worcester and Birmingham canal meets the Birmingham and Fazeley canal. The W&B was built second and the B&F wouldn't agree to the two meeting up so there was a stop lock put in known as the Worcester bar. Boats couldn't go through and goods had to carried across it. Fortunately now the two are joined up so we can get through! It was a hugely busy place then, as it is again now, although in a completely different way. Its all recreation now not industrial work! There has been loads of redevelopment which is interesting and it seems to be thriving.

The cube. The canal turns just by it and the wind howled between the building making it quite a job to get round.

Harold moored at Gas Street.

The BBC building from the bridge over the canal you can see in the background in some programmes.

The Birmingham Rep. theatre.

There were lots of people about despite it being a very chilly damp Monday evening (goodness knows what its like at the weekend) and a nightmare for Scooby as the postage stamps of green there were all had no dogs signs and threatening notices. Robin walked half a mile up the canal before they found a bit of grass edge to the towpath for Scooby to have a poo. We will have to leave tomorrow unfortunately because it is so dog unfriendly.

Mixed reviews in Birmingham so far .....