Black Country Museum and Dudley Tunnel

Moored Dudley Tunnel, BCN

There was time to move this morning a little nearer the tunnel before we went to explore the museum.  We winded No Problem (turned) before mooring at the services to do a pump out of our loo grey tank.  We failed to do that a few days ago at Wheaton Aston as the machine was broken there.

Paul Balmer fetched me a ‘two for one’ entrance voucher yesterday which he found on the English Heritage site, so that was really handy and saved us £10.50 on the entrance fees.. thanks Paul it worked! xx

I had spied the steam narrowboat President through the railings last night, and after stepping through the doors of the museum and also stepping back in time we made our way over there to have a look at both President and it’s butty Kildare..

This is the home mooring for this pair, and we were lucky that they were in town today to go have a quiet look and a chat to the chap you see in the pic.  These two are due in Braunston in about 10 days time for the Historic Boat Show that is being held there, but they won’t be leaving till very late in the day, doing what they call a ‘Fly Boat run’.

In days gone past some working boats were registered to travel all night and some were not.  Fly Boat runs were undertaken a lot from Birmingham to London, of course it was much better to have goods travel that way..  That’s the pure basics anyway.. if you want to know more you will need to google it!

Here we go then, more pictures for you of our day back in time.. I know a lot of you enjoyed yesterdays pictures so this blog has a load more.. later I will put even more in an album..

The only think I see wrong here is the price.. £1.00 was certainly not bygone prices!  All the funfare rides took me back a long way and gave me great memories of my childhood..

This whole place is fantastic, we actually went inside a coal mine, very authentic, even having to duck down along the tunnels with just a candle light to show the way.. extremely well done.  In fact this is a real must for boaters.. even the pub only sold drinks that were available at the time… no lagers or wine to be had.. I was happy with a pint of bitter!

Dragging ourselves away, being disappointed that there were no volunteers manning the trolly bus shed which I was really looking forward to seeing, it was getting late, and we managed to grab a seat on the trip boat which went into Dudley Tunnel itself.. cor doesn’t he look sexy good in his hard hat!! ..

It definitely suits him!  In the tunnel mine kept falling off everytime I looked up.. at one point it nearly fell in the canal much to everyone’s amusement.. …

Gosh it was a small entrance, for sure we would have to knock a good nine inches off the top of No Problem if we wanted to leg it through the tunnel.  You are allowed to take your boat through the tunnel if it fits under the measuring gauge if you want to.. but no engines are allowed and you would have to leg it through by laying on the roof sideways and with your feet on the wall, you would need to ‘walk the wall’.. 4 hours worth of walking!

Trip boat will do!!

This is inside the tunnel.. yep more tunnels and further on inside there are massive caverns where limestone was mined.. there is more about this on their website if you are interested, but it is mind boggling.  This tunnel is like no other I have been in.. look at the rough cut..

The board you can see is where later in the trip a couple of people laid head to head and legged us through a very short way.. they gave up after about 20 yards, they were knacked!  Can you imagine doing that for 4 hours to get through this tunnel!

Anyway, we had a fantastic day around here, and tonight Lucy and Meg got their turn, and I took them for a long jaunt along the towpaths all the way to Bradshall Junction on the Old Main Line..

Here there is a staircase lock of two, with another lock not far way which drops the canal down to the New Main Line.  The difference between old and new is not only the two different levels, but the New Line was built later and in an almost straight line for quite some way through Birmingham because what they now call the Old Main Line was full of bends and took working boats much longer to get through the city..

The other crossing that I saw tonight was Tividale Aqueduct..

This also runs to the Main Line, you can see at the lower level.  I am standing on the aqueduct of the Old Line.. back behind me this runs under the Old Line to Netherton Tunnel which leads to the Stourbridge Canal and River Severn…. Gosh Old Line, New Line.. and all the levels are confusing.. hope I don’t leave you too confused, if I have, just enjoy the pictures then!