On our canal - The Drotwich Barge canal is opening

I noticed in the latest waterway news online that the Drotwich Barge canal is to have an official opening soon. The restoration is yet another triumph for the amateur brigade who fought for this canal to be restored when the powers that be were indifferent if not anti and who got on with restoring it, even running a day boat on it when the chap in charge was dieing of cancer and his tearful wife and carer was doing boat duty's as well as fighting to get her husband medical treatment and nursing him 24/7. Meanwhile the Waterway Recovery Group restored locks to a standard much better than the contractors that the government owners  - British Waterways - can ever hope to equal. (Though, of course BW always checks their work as it must be approved with all the right red tape tied.)

 Finally, after years of work by the volunteers  the local councils got interested in restoration, money was found and, when money appears so does BW with eyes a glinting. And so, though WRG has done most of the labour and the local canal society has fought a million battles the canal finally gets OFFICIALLY restored and opened - though one wonders how much of the original efforts will get acknowledged as the toffs of BW and councils line up to get photographed at the opening - before racing back to their offices far away.

Anyway the interesting bit about the barge canal is that it joins to another canal - the Drotwich Junction canal. This is a short canal and as the barge canal links to the river Severn and the Junction one links into another open canal between Worcester and Birmingham the finished pair will give boaters a shortcut missing out a chunk of the Severn, Worcester and a chunk of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

 Now you might think the trip through Worcester would be nice but for us it ain't. Over the next couple of paras I will give our reasons why though others may not agree...

 Basically river moorings are not that great in Worcester and apart from the bit near the Cathedral the passage through is a bit disappointing. The canal bit is even more naff with a few 'you can moor but don't moor - yobs' places and ones where you can moor mostly yob free on a narrow towpath with bikes whizzing past at all hours. The mooring you can use used mostly to be off the cycle trail until BW and their mates started developing Worcester basin. At this point all the residential and other boats in the basin got moved  - some to moor at all non cycle route moorings in the basin and others along the canal near it. As a result what moorings that are left (on the cycle route) are mostly occupied - meaning you either take your chance on a 'moor here but yobs patrol' bit or head out of town.

Heading out of some towns is easy - you just drive the boat along the lock-free canal a few miles. But the Worcester and Birmingham Canal has lots of locks and leaving Worcester means going through a number of them. So off you go through the grotty bum of the town followed by miles of suburbs with the graffiti on bridges telling you to keep going lock on lock. After the suburbs come the factories but mixed in with them are certain camps of  who knows - who stare at you as you pass. By this time you have a noisy road on one side and the M5 in front and above you plus a lot of connector roads - making for quite a bit of noise. Beyond most of this lot is a flight of 6 locks where it seems to rain more often than not. (The slope up and the rainfall on the west side of the high plateau (400' above sea level) where Birmingham sits is 3 times that on the east side - this being the sort of thing you learn when boating.) So you go up the 6 locks, through a cutting and, finally, 16 locks and a good few miles from the river Severn, there are good moorings near a village (shop at far end!) and pub (beside the canal).

And that is why - when it opens - the Drotwich barge canal/junction canal will be very popular with this boater! One small problem - the Barge canal may be opening but it is not yet connected to the junction canal. The link bit has been delayed as in the recession some housing scheme - which incorporated the link lock and channel - has been shelved  This means that until some way is found to get the money and build the link bit the Barge canal is a dead end - and one subject to water problems for, without the connected junction canal to bring water from the W&B canal above there is only limited water from a nearby small river to supply the Barge canal locks.

To underline this problem the Barge canal will have its official opening but only a half dozen boats will then be allowed to travel up and down it before it is padlocked up by its owners - British Waterways.

This grand opening by BW and others followed by padlocks on is not that rare as in recent years it has happened on an number of BW controlled canals - including our one through Maesbury. I'll tell you the story of that and other tales of BW and the Maesbury canal soon...

To end here is a photo of a nice river. This is the pivately owned and maintained river Avon. Now those chaps know how to develop restored waterways and improve them for all!

Note how everyting blends nicely as we leave the lock (under the bridge) and bend round to rejoin the river.