Where next?

Buoyed by the success of their first ‘big’ cruise, John and Cathy on Marmaduke are now eagerly wondering where to go next. Well, my vote at this time of year would be to go up the Stourbridge Canal, do all the Dudley/Merry Hill squiggly bits, stop over in Birmingham central for a couple of days (perfectly doable with dogs – just more at the farthest point of the westerly main line visitor moorings and you have miles of empty towpath to play with) and then head down the Worcester and Birmingham, finishing off with a gentle run up (?) river from Diglis back to Stourport. It won't be busy and more importantly it will give some new dimensions to their cruising – a bit or urban, some classic city centre regeneration, two contrasting mega tunnels, a monster flight, some river pootling, lots of heritage and wonderful scenery. The W&B doesn’t tend to feature much in boaty blogs, well, not when compared to the Oxford, Thames and Kennet & Avon, and I think it is a much underrated canal. Okay, so the beginning and end aren’t the most prepossessing (they are interesting though) but the middle bit is corking. The Stourbridge isn’t half bad either. But the canal world really is J&C's oyster at the moment....plenty of pearls hopefully and not too many swines.