Secure overnight moorings beside the Black Country Museum, looking towards the east portal of the Dudley Tunnel.	Fish & Chips made using real dripping bought for lunch at the Black Country Museum - Naughty but delicious!	Staff at the museum dress for the occasion - a visit there is well worth it.	Tunnels & High Bridges - BCN style.
Do all the vehicles travelling on the M5 above know there is a 20 ton narrowboat travelling in the same direction for about a mile - directly below them.	Factory overhead - our tall pipe (that's the engine exhaust pipe) just fits under.	Aston Junction, heading for the B'ham & Fazeley canal, just one route down off the BCN (Brum was built up on a hill)....	.... and looking back at Aston junction.  Despite it's obvious urban nature, there seems to be little trouble from youths - perhaps they're just used to boats.

So a résumé of the BCN. The Stourbridge canal links the Staffs & Worcs canal at Stourton with the heart of the English Canal System that is (collectively known as) the Birmingham Canal Navigation - referred to as the ‘BCN’. The BCN is not just one canal but a whole system of canals. There are more canals in the Birmingham city area than there are in Venice - and they’re cleaner too.

The BCN is largely an urban system of canals that provided a transport system serving the many factories, and mines, in the Birmingham area. Being close to the heart of Brindley's 'Great Cross' canal transport system, Birmingham was thus given the transport system which made it the most important industrial area of it's time (in the country if not the world).  It was the Industrial Revolution in the making - all brought about by our canal system.

Not known for being particularly pretty it is nevertheless interesting in terms of canal heritage. Much rejuvenation work has taken place in the centre of the city around the ’Gas Street’ area - now with it’s canalside yuppie bistros. We regularly visit Gas Street and even more frequently visit the Black Country Museum. No visit to the BCN should miss a visit to the museum - nor the adjacent Dudley tunnel and it’s canal trip into the limestone caverns of the tunnel (operated by a charity Dudley Tunnel Trust) - excellent value.

The Stourbridge takes us up onto the BCN (Birmingham area was built on a wide hill) from the West side from the Staffs & Worcs canal via the Delph flight of locks and via the Netherton Tunnel. To the North we enter the BCN by climbing the Wolverhampton 21 flight of locks. From the South and East we climb in via the Farmers Bridge locks from the Birmingham and Fazeley (from the East) and from the Grand Union (from the South). From the Southwest the Worcester & Birmingham canal enters the centre through Gas Street basin. That entry point to the BCN is the only one on the same level - all the climbing was done earlier at the Tardebigge flight.

Running along the North/South spine of the BCN we have two main line canals, linking Wolverhampton to the north with Birmingham City Centre to the south. Firstly we have our favourite, ‘the old main line’ aka the ‘Wolverhampton level’, and secondly we have the ‘new main line’ (a bit straight for my liking). Taking the old main line we pass underneath the arches of the flyover bridges, carrying the M5 motorway, following underneath for about a mile - a bet the motorists just don’t realise that there are seventy foot boats travelling along underneath their carriageway - and that they were there first. Leaving the motorway section, the old main line curves backwards and forwards around industrial factory sites - believe it or not, it's very interesting boating. Off the main lines we have the city loops - all a bit of fun.