Merry Hill - even shopping centres provide good walks

I needed to reach my December walking target, and I had a spare hour to fill, so went for a walk from Dudley's Merry Hill Shopping Centre

Even from the top of these steps, the centre looked different (better)

 I turned right along the canal

There's Netherton Church in the distance. And my shadow 

This section of the canal, the Waterfront, has been heavily developed with jolly coloured buildings 

A ziggurat?

There are some really nice moorings here for narrow boats

About 100 metres past the boats, the view gets much more rural

The canal was built to support industry, and there are interesting industrial buildings all along this section. Part of this bore the old name Round Oak, once a big steel works (now the site of Merry Hill itself)

This was probably an old hoist 

I've driven this road lots of times without realising just how close I was to the canal

At some point, this would have been a bridge over a loading bay.

Signpost saying it is 6 mins to the Waterfront. It took me 15, so I was a bit surprised. Then I saw it was for cyclists

More of this walk tomorrow. What I met next came as a surprise to me. As a local, you'll probably know! I didn't.