RebelMike

Ah, I think he may have ended up with us, we passed him to Indigo Dream and they passed him back, but we mostly just kept bumping into each other! I'll check if any of the crew have him @HuggableHamster, @Amynotontheforum @smudgepuss?

Sitting in the beer tent after the challenge, we got on to a discussion on curlitude. @HuggableHamster pointed out that the Barton Swing Aqueduct provides a point of infinite curlitude, and I can think of other points where canals cross each other, but what if we restrict the competition to distances between canal endpoints?

Addendum: @Amynotontheforum’s further mutiny and punishment. Collected from witness statements and the accused testimony. @Amynotontheforumwas found guilty of mutiny and sentenced to chimney brushing, porta potty cleaning and coffee making duties for the remainder of the season. After the initial first mutiny death of a strawberry the crew thought all her gremlin activity had ceased. Unfortunately this was not to be as she was simply too much of a white devil. Setting up Mr Fake Duck like a lion in winter with her secret weapon, a yoghurt pot! Sneaking out of the boat she escaped up the 39 steps to the jetty (maintaining all social distancing) into the flying machine she had hidden near the bradley locks. Unfortunately it all got a bit brechtian too soon finding the fourth wall of the machine broken. Feeling as though today's gremlining was about to be much ado about nothing she stumbled upon an abandoned bbq on the quayside, after carefully sanitising the bbq Amy settled to a late lunch, before heading to the finish thinking alls well that ends well. However like the three musketeers the rest of the crew had been following her progress and once they found her at the finish, @Amynotontheforum was put to work and found guilty of misuse of her daily allowable quarantine exercise, avoiding lock wheeling duties, and making threats to yoghurt pots. She was banished to below decks for the remainder of the evening.

Log time: 17:45 Location: The Big Finish, Bradley Workshops Emerging into the present we tie up our lines, disconnect our Automat Senschuct, and grease the stern gland. We look around to discover @Amynotontheforum had taken a shortcut to the party and had been tucking into the barbeque and beer already. We have some catching up to do! Log sent in, quiz summed up and our closing post written, we crack open our tipple of choice and wander over to chat to the other teams, content we have all our ducks in a row! Thank you to @cheshire~rose and all her team we have had a wonderful, silly and exhausting week. It feels like we’ve done something between a child’s history project and an industrial archeology PhD but we’ve learnt so much, and will, when we finally can move again, have to go and see some of the remains of these canals for ourselves!

Log time: 17:25, Saturday 8th May 1802 We just had enough time before the finish for one last push down the staircase locks on the Bradley Marr branch and back up again. Alongside the branch is the colliery owned by Foley & Scott. We did have trouble working out where the exact path of the branch was to start with, as most of our source maps were newer than the canal, and we didn’t spot the bit that said ‘old canal’ for a while... Then, we found this lovely specimen, although we were a little confused by north being to the right: But then of course why would it be? We spend half our lives using Pearson’s maps after all!

Log time: 17:00, Saturday 11th May 1850 Location: Bradley Locks Junction For some reason, we’ve decided to travel both the Wednesbury Oak Loop of the original Old Main Line, and the Rotton Brunt canal that shortens the journey on the Old Main Line around the Wednesbury Oak Loop… More adventures I guess! The Rotton Brunt also joins the Bradley Locks branch to the Old Main Line. Still no sign of @Amynotontheforum...

Log time: 16:30, Saturday 20th May 1950 Location: Half way up the Bradley Locks We can’t find @Amynotontheforum, but we have a suspicion where she might have gone... Many thanks to @Indigo Dreamers leaving the locks ready for us - we've managed to keep to time so far. Here’s the view looking back down the flight. (Picture from https://www.bradleycanal.co.uk/, who are looking to restore this branch, amongst other places)

Log time: 15:45, Saturday 20th May 1950 Location: Moorcroft Junction Approaching Moorcroft Junction - as you can just about make out going off to the right in the shot from RebellionCam 2017: We’re coming from the other direction today, and we dialled the Automat back to 1950 before turning left on to what was once known as the Scott & Foley Canal.

It's all very confusing - @smudgepuss posted the link to our private chat and it worked then (I even checked it in another browser so I wasn't logged in to an account with edit rights to the map). But clicking the link in the forum post (using Firefox) gives a 400 error for me, and copying it into Chrome doesn't help either. I think the forum is turning some of the escaped characters back into braces and brackets and then some browsers don't like it.

I wouldn't want @smudgepuss to be called a bad minion when she's made such an amazing map! Here's a version of the link that works for me. She put it together last week while we were all still figuring out where these historic canals had been and it's allowed us to plot the GPS track through the week. It's a wonderful piece of work!

Log time: 13:50, Thursday 14th November 1850 Location: Gospel Oak Branch A passing boater informed us of what had happened - the workmen at the pit had been warned of gas in one of the pits, but Master Bayley, son of the proprietor James had forgot the warning and took a lit candle down. Five had been killed. Sobered by how tough life could be back in the 19th century we headed on to the end of the branch.

It does seem unclear - in the 1889 OS map it looks like it might not be linked, but that might just be a bridge. Bradshaw's lists a junction with the Danks branch on the Tame Valley though so we thought it probably did. Luckily in the final iteration of our route we had time to go both ways so it didn't matter!

Log time: 12:45, Thursday 14th November 1850 Location: Junction with the Gospel Oak Branch We travelled back to 1850 and turned left on to the Gospel Oak branch. We were considering mooring up for lunch when we heard an explosion in the distance. Checking the map, it came from the direction of Willingsworth Colliery. We thought it was best to moor up in case there was any impact on the canal, and it was time for a lunch break anyway. (OS map from 1889, after the colliery had been closed)

Log time: 12:30, Saturday 9th May 2020 Location: Tame Valley Junction Also known as Doe Bank junction. Probably not in honour of Homer Simpson. We’d gone the long way round, winding at the end of Danks Branch and returning to the Walsall Canal instead of cutting the corner using the Tame Valley. It’s all about squeezing those last few points in before the finish! While we were considering food options for the challenge, William was reminiscing of spaghetti from a previous trip on the other side of Birmingham.

Log time: 11:31, Thursday 5th Feb 1933 Location: Danks Branch Junction, Walsall Canal The Automat Sehnsucht dropped us in to a cold February morning, and we thought of warmer times in Mauritius, where @HuggableHamster’s Dad was born this day. Having been christened the gremlin of the ship @amynotontheforum is under the watchful eye of fake mr duck. Who has set his quack alert to hard glare! Knowing the gremlin has a penchant for Dank Memes, Fake Mr Duck’s quack alert was upgraded to stun! Starting out along the Danks branch, which had notice to build listed in the gazette in 1838 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19673/page/2533 This branch was extended throughout 1839 whereupon the canal was extended into the Earl of Dartmouths Land, north of where the Tame Valley canal now is. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19789/page/2212 Resisting the urge (and Mr Fake Ducks Stun Quack) to go and wave at the earl of dartmouth in his field. The Team turned and made their way back through danks branch, giving the tow path a quick tidy after whizzing forward to present day.

Log time: 11:05, Tuesday 20th March 1883 Location: Junction with Haines Branch We travelled back to 1883 to watch the official opening of the Haines branch, but, not wanting to be impeded by the ceremonies, we then popped forward a few months to make our passage. The canal was (as pretty much all canals were, why am I even typing this bit) to enable the movement of goods to industry. In this case, clay pits and brickworks and collieries. Alongside what will eventually be called sheepwash nature reserve, at the moment it is full of mining activity. In the future (present) the canal line near here will become a cyclepath. Back in 2020, all that’s left are a few noticeable spoil tips, such as this one left from Horsley Heath Colliery that closed in the 1960s: GPS is up and running!

Log time: 10:00, Saturday 4th May 1974 Location: Ryders Green Top Lock We awoke late to find @Amynotontheforum had mutinied and eaten the last of the strawberries! But she reassured us that she had at least not been playing with the Automat. We hit the big red button to take us back to 1974 and were followed by Tony Clayton and his boat crew as they descended the locks. Fake Mr Duck was kept below decks due to his Yoghurt-Pot-Phobia. He's sure they’re very nice, but they are just too similar to the plastic 6 pack rings that have trapped so many of his brethren. We snapped this picture of them on their way (Credit http://www.tonycanalpics.co.uk/bcn/mainline/index.html)

We got William all decorated up for our extended VE night celebrations: I hope you’ve all been enjoying a bevarage or two out the back of your boat, or in your land based homes this evening. Cheers!

I hadn't fully appreciated at the start of the week how much effort it would be keeping the GPS track up to date and making all the planned log posts at the time we were virtually passing each location. @HuggableHamster did an excellent job while I was working! Though when you're making the updates while drinking with friends (appropriately socially distanced - we were all in our own boats/homes on Discord!) it's easy to forget a detail... Still, only one day to go - this is meant to be a marathon challenge after all.

And there was a bit of a delay to the GPS there, but it's now fully up to date

Log time: 18:45, VE Day Location: Ryders Green Junction After a long day’s cruise we tied our lines at the top of the flight of locks, which from a quick inspection had very little water in. We’re hoping that they will recover overnight. (Photo from canal plan)

Log time: 17:35, VE Day Location: Junction with Dartmouth Branch We left the Halford branch, having been tempted to explore the Jesson arm but the planning team insisted that would not help us in the quest for more points. We instead went looking for the junction with the Dartmouth branch, which served the collieries near Hateley Heath. This time the drone drone camera didn’t behave quite so well, it flew very high and we would only just have been able to make out the branch if it hadn’t put a handy red ring around it:

Log time: 17:10, Friday 9th May 1952 Location: Junction of Ridgacre Canal with Halford Branch @HuggableHamster had been very quiet today, I wondered what she’d been up to. Turns out she had captured that 23rd century C&RT drone and had been rewiring it to allow us to get some aerial photographs. As we were coming to the end of the Ridgeacre canal and turned on to the Halford branch, she released the drone. It behaved itself and came straight back to William after taking this shot of the junction: As we were travelling the branch we found the end beyond the Jesson arm was already closed. It was time to hop back to 1945 and spend the rest of the trip enjoying the celebrations of Victory in Europe Day! We deployed the drone again - it took this shot of the arm. I wonder why its photos are black and white? (Photos from @Capt Ahab's blog)

Yes why not, we could look after him again for a bit!

Log time: 15:30, Friday 9th May 1952 Location: Interchange Basin, Wednesbury Old Canal We’re about to cruise to the original end of Brindley’s Wednesbury Old Canal, the winding section up from Swan Village that later became known as the Balls Hill Branch. But first we come to the Great Western Railway interchange basin, where goods were transhipped between boat and train. We snapped this photo: