Birmingham to Merry Hill

We left our mooring in Birmingham on Friday 5 June and cruised some of the loops and arms before arriving at Dudley, where we moored overnight and visited the Black Country Living Museum and went on a boat trip run by the Dudley Canal Trust into the Dudley Tunnel. We then cruised through the Netherton Tunnel and continued on to Merry Hill where we moored overnight on Sunday 7 June next to the Merry Hill shopping Centre

Bill needed to be pulled free after he grounded

We were kept busy clearing the stuff that got wrapped round our propeller

On Saturday 6 June we visited the Black Country Living Museum, which is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The museum occupies 26 acres of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, disused lime kilns and former coal pits. It was opened in 1978, since when many more exhibits have been added.

The museum preserves some important buildings from around the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton; mainly in a specially built village. Most buildings were relocated from their original sites to form a base from where demonstrators portray life in the period from the 1850s to the 1950s.

We enjoyed a meal and the entertainment at Mad O'Rourkes Pie Factory in Tipton

We enjoyed our boat trip into the Dudley Tunnel
Chris & Peter had a go at legging the boat through!

We enter the 2.4 mile long Netherton Tunnel which was opened in 1858

The lads enjoyed a pint...

...while the girls did a quick reccy of the shopping centre for the next morning!