Under the Deck

A glorious day in the West Midlands made all the better by a bit of a walk.  I had an ulterior motive, wanting to find a suitable image for wide Wednesday and its theme of infrastructure.  So, after taking the train into Birmingham I started to walk back home, firstly along the Birmingham and Fazeley canal, before reaching Salford Junction.  A rather anonymous junction, I'll bet many UK blippers have at one time or another passed over it, oblivious to it.  If I mentioned Spaghetti Junction, there might just be an 'ah' moment.  

I used to live just a mile or so up the road from the junction and I remember as a 9-10 year old being taken by my Dad down to the new fangled motorway that was being built over the then Salford Circus.  Health and Safety was that relaxed in those days we walked up one of the slip roads and stood at the high point of the (Gravelly Hill) interchange, looking down on the M6 as it neared completion.

In the image you can see the Tame Valley Canal flowing under the main M6 deck.  The engineering is as impressive now as it was futuristic back in 1970.  After a bit of a play trying to capture a suitable image, I headed on up the canal towards the Ray Hall Interchange, where the M5 and M6 join.  What I hadn't appreciated was the engineering that had gone into creating this canal as it passed Hamstead.  The canal is on an embankment for at least a kilometre that must at times be 15 metres above the pre-existing ground level.  An incredible feat of engineering on a par with the elevated section of the motorway, when you take into consideration the different eras.

To top it all I also saw my first kingfisher of the year while near the embankment (No picture, I was going lightweight today).  My walk ended up at about 15 miles.  Aching now but enjoyable all the same.