Winter Chill!

Leaving Birmingham, the temperatures reminded us that winter has arrived. The morning dawned crisp and clear, with frost on the grass and ice on the mooring lines. There was aromatic smoke drifting from the chimneys of narrowboats with solid fuel heaters, and we definitely had our diesel heater fired up. 

We firstly stopped to fill our water tanks, then set off along the canal heading to the Black Country Living Museum about 10 miles away.

We had perfect blue skies as we glided along the canal, through the more industrial parts of Birmingham.

A little further along we travelled a couple of kilometres directly below the  huge M5 freeway, which was quite a surreal experience. At one stage there were four layers: the river below, the canal we were travelling on, the freeway above us and above that the railway line. Val kindly gave me these photos, as I was skipper for the morning.

As we went along we found the sides of the canal and foliage were covered in thick frost, which didn’t melt all day.

However, the big surprise a mile or two along the canal was finding the surface of the water was frozen. If you zoom in you can see the ice on the water.

At first it was just a skim of ice, but thickened up as we went along and was about ½ an inch thick for several kilometres. You could hear the steel hull of the boat breaking through the crust, and long cracks appeared all the way to the sides of the canal. The ice was shattering and splintering and it made an almost singing noise as it broke up against the hull. Sometimes a sheet of ice would break off and slide across the frozen surface, as in the last photo. It was quite amazing to experience.