Canal Maps Progress Report 2023

Canal maps seem to have taken over during the winter and while I am not playing about with the boat, we have made a significant amount of progress. Soon I hope to return to playing on the boat as we are on the final stages of a Solar Panel project, with just the fitting to go. But cold weather, kids and decorating have meant I needed somthing to do on my laptop so we have had 6 months of mapping.

1100+ Mooring including:- Marinas, CRT Mooring both leisure and permanent, EA Visitor moorings and anything else I could find, thanks to all who submitted theirs.

1000+ Pubs, Restaurants, Cafes, Fish & Chip Shops, Coffee Shops, Tea Shops, Ice Cream Parlours, Pizza Parlours and many many more locations that I wanted to know about.

350+ Services Points, including Pump Outs, Water Points, Diesel and Petrol points, Elsan Points, Showers, Toilets, Calor gas, Solid Fuel and Refuse points. Again stuff we need to know where to find.

And in development but still accessable are:-

Hire Boat Locations – 122 so far

Things to visit near the Canal/River – 63 Atractions

Chandlers and Boat Yards – 47 Locations

Location buttonWe have also added a button on each map that will try to locate you on the map, so you can see what is nearby.

Facebook Group – At last count we have 4200 members of this group, which we hope will use the maps as well as contribute to them, it is also the best place to contact me.

We have had a few recommendations from users including the location of Petrol stations near the canals for the outboard users, the location of Charging points for the Electric Boat users, both of which will be researched and added.

Now looking forward to a few trips out this year, before we take the big one (for us) and spend a year traveling on the canals and rivers could be 2025/2026 if all goes to plan.

The Summer Adventure 2022 Part 4 – Birmingham to Wolverhampton

22nd – 25th Shopping, Books and food

We decided to spend a few day investigating Birmingham, the Commonwealth Games had just finished the week before, so there was still lots to see.

Birmingham Library

Mary, our youngest has a fascination with books, and we had moored within a stones throw of the Birmingham Library, a stunning building both inside and out with some great view over the city from the viewing areas, not good for my vertigo.

The Amazing Bull from the opening of the Commonwealth Games 2022

Just outside the library was the Birmingham Bull from the opening ceremony at the Commonwealth Games 2022, you should just be able to see it obscured by Sonia and Mary.

For the next few days we just seemed to spend our time walking and shopping, there is so much to see in Birmingham, Large open Markets, and the Bull Ring shopping centre a must visit for a teenager but we will be back for a better look soon.

On the 24th we headed off again towards Wolverhampton, when we reached Smethwick Junction, we decided to take the road less travelled and joined the Old Birmingham Canal as we had plans on visiting the Black Country Living Museum, in the end this had to be saved for another day.

Under the M5 in Birmingham

The canal does many twists and turns through much of the back of industrial Birmingham including traveling under the M5 Motorway, which is one of the few time we saw another boat moving.

After a long day chugging we got to the CRT Broad Street Basin Facilities, which is now just a water point everything else was locked up and looked very rundown.

Mooring in Wolverhampton

We moored up just after the next bridge ready to start Lock 1 of the Wolverhampton 21 lock flight the next day.