As with any kind of boating, canals can be dangerous.

Pictures of the canals, the boats & the people.
General photos that dont belong in any specific canal album,
Read the journal for a better understanding of the canal system http://journals.fotki.com/Wyeman/Canals/

The canals have become a haven for wildlife of all kinds, from Kingfishers and Heron, to Water Voles and Wild Mink.

The first 10 photos are to get the project started and are duplicates of photos in their respective canal album below - although duplicated, they all have more specific captions to them.
New ones will be added as we travel the canal system and will only appear here, so that this will be a "Bridges" album.

A short canal created to carry coal from the mines to the industrial centres via the Coventry Canal to the South and the Trent & Mersey to the North. The North link was never completed hence the Ashby became a 'there-and-back' canal instead of a through route.
Nowdays, as a leisure facility it is therefore a quiet, pretty canal in a rural setting with little traffic.

Linking the main North/South canals with the Trent & Mersey canal, bypassing the busy complex that formed the Birmingham Navigations.

Giving access to Gloucester Docks on the River Severn and thence to the Bristol Channel.

The 'New' fast route from the Birmingham Navigations to London, built as an alternative to the narrow and slower Oxford Canal, the Grand Union was wider with wide locks to move bigger boats.
Nowdays, as a leisure facility, the deeper, wider locks are more daunting and need to be negotiated with care and understanding.

The junction of the Coventry Canal and thereby the Birmingham Navigations, with the Oxford Canal and thereby the Thames and London.
Known to the working boatmen as Suttons Stop or Suttons Place - three generations of the Sutton family were Lengthsmen (cargo checking) here and it was famous as a main link in the contact and communication chain on the waterways.

Album closed until all photos loaded.
Known as the Mon & Brec, it's one of only two Welsh canals and is the only fully active canal in the system that is not connected to the rest of the system. The Mon & Brec winds through 35 miles of peaceful countryside all the way from Brecon south to Cwmbran.

The canal suffered a breach in 2007 and was drained for repairs.
The breach was just east of Gilwern.
These photos are of the stretch from bridge 97 at Govilon Yard
to bridge 103 at Gilwern.
.

From Braunston Turn, North to Hawksbury Junction.

From Oxford, North to Braunston Turn where it junctions with The Grand Union Canal and from there it becomes The North Oxford Canal.
The whole of the Oxford Canal connected the Thames with the Coventry Canal and thereby the Birmingham Navigations.
Superceded by the Grand Union Canal but remained in use right to the end of canal working boats.

Known as "The Shroppy".
Forming a feed from the Staffs & Worcester canal, directly North to the River Mersey and the Liverpool Docks. A much faster route using the flat landscape and therefore having fewer locks to delay the journey.

Abbreviated to the "S&W"
Linking the River Severn with the Trent & Mersey canal. This formed a feed connecting the docks at Gloucester via the River Severn.

Linking the River Avon (and thereby the River Severn and Gloucester Docks) with the Grand Union Canal.

Abbreviated to the "T&M"
Joining Liverpool on the West coast with Kingston Upon Hull on the East coast by connecting the River Mersey with the River Trent at Nottingham. As well as bringing raw materials into and taking manufactured goods out from the steel and potteries towns of Staffordshire, the canal formed a 'Main Line' across the country and allowed many other canals to link together into an interconnected system.