Day 10 - Cuttle Inn to Catherine de Barnes via Birmingham

We started at 8am, intending to travel down through Birmingham via the easterly Grand Union route then out southeast towards Warwick.  However, a passing couple told us the Garrison locks were closed due to a threatened building collapse, so we'd have to take the longer route through the Aston flight (a total of 23 locks).  That was the first setback - then we found many locks in a poor state of repair, with extremely stiff paddles and heavy gates.  It was a boiling hot day - which combined with the bleak landscape produced an almost dreamlike experience.  When we do the trip again, we'll make sure we knew where to stop overnight in central Birmingham, since it was extremely hard work, we didn't get to actually see much of the city apart from the canal and we didn't make it to the village of Catherine de Barnes until 10pm.

At around 8pm just before the final lock, something chunky completely jammed the prop - it cleared sufficiently for us to go slowly but with a great deal of judder.