Llangollen

I had a wander around Llangollen, a lovely town but quite touristy as you would expect.

Looking down on the town from my mooring

Looking down the main street.

There are a fair number of gift and souvenir shops both along the main road and in the side streets along with antique shops but there is also a Spar and a Co-op plus a couple of greengrocers and butchers. Meals out are also well covered by bars, cafes, pubs and restaurants, and a couple of fish and chips shops as well as a few more specialist deli's and so all your needs are catered for.

The river Dee and Llangollen railway station.

I walked along to the works on the bridge this morning and it does not look like it will be ready for boats tomorrow, but they do seem quite close to finishing, time will tell.

Meanwhile I am quite happy here although getting a bit keen to move on.

A towpath walk to the finish.

I can’t believe this weather, it’s more like April than January, anyway after breakfast I decided to stretch my legs and walk the last couple of miles of canal down to Horseshoe Falls, and having traveled 45 miles down the Llangollen it would be sinful not to see the end.

So I set off along the very well maintained and surfaced towpath towards the terminus for powered boats and where I had expected to be moored, there are 32 empty berths here at the moment, in the summer these will be full every day, it’s about 400 yards from my mooring.

And this is the reason I am not there, bridge 45W closed.

Although powered boats are not allowed further than the mooring basin and winding hole horse drawn trip boats are and they travel between Llangollen Wharf and the end of the canal at Horseshoe Falls.

Llangollen Wharf

It’s a very lovely 1¾ mile walk, following the course of the River Dee on the left of the canal, nestled in the valley with lovely views wherever you look.

The canal ends at Horseshoe Falls with a small valve house governing the flow of water into the canal from the River Dee

This is Horseshoe Falls, a crescent shaped weir some 460 feet long which creates a pool of water which can then flow into the Canal.

Walking back and passing the Chainlink Bridge and Hotel over and on the banks of the Dee.

The Dee with it’s fast slow and rocky bed is very popular with practising canoeists, but only a couple out there today.

Tomorrow weather permitting a walk around the town.

Experiencing Highs and Lows on the final leg of the Llangollen canal

Friday 22^nd January

It was raining when I woke up, I had breakfast and sorted myself out and it was still raining, I was not to be put off today though, so it was waterproofs on and off I went at 9am heading the wrong way to find a winding hole and then return.

That little exercise involved passing through Whitehouses Tunnel twice, no problems today as I hugged the right hand side of the canal. It took about an hour each way but my timing was perfect and proved later to be very useful again.

I was just passing my original mooring as a couple on their boat were setting off, the wife was walking ahead and the man asked if I was going through the bridge, when I said yes he told me his wife would open it, so that was a great start. I offered my thanks as I went through.

And then it was on to the aqueduct, yesterdays pictures are probably better but these prove I did actually go over, some of the shots were taken with my left hand and no real idea of how they would appear but I thought concentrating on steering and not bashing the cast iron sides of the trough would be preferable to getting a good picture!

Almost there, it's over 1,000 feet long

And we are on, the right hand side has a towpath, the left just the small cast iron
sides of the trough that holds the water, so when you look over the side
 of the boat you are looking straight down.

The gap between the edge of the boat and the trough is about 3-6 inches

It's 126 feet down at the deepest part

Passing over the river Dee

For those interested in more facts about the aqueduct the Wiki page can be found Here

After a sharp left at the end of the aqueduct you are on the last section of the canal heading towards Llangollen, it’s beautiful, winding its way through the Welsh hills and mountains, here's some of the views.

But....there has to be a but.....from this point on I put the camera down and concentrated on what was ahead.........the lows in the title of this post, the water level I was told later was about 8 inches lower than normal, in the first mile or so I scraped the bottom several times and then at bridge 42W I grounded and stuck as I was half way out of the bridge, hindsight showed I cut the corner of the angled bridge a bit too much but hindsight is wonderful isn’t it!

So here was the occasion when my earlier timing was helpful, the other boat was still following and the man got off and came along to help, we still couldn’t shift it, a passing cyclist and a walker joined in and with the three of them heaving on my centre line and me on the tiller with gentle throttle we managed to free it.

I continued along and ran aground at least three or four more times, reversing off and trying a different line of approach worked on these occasions.

After safely negotiating the two narrow sections, one way working and you are advised to send a crew meember ahead to check it's clear, mmmm....only me available so that's not happening, and praying nothing came the other way (nothing did) I arrived at the first of the visitor moorings to be told the bridge ahead was closed for repairs and I would have to moor there, it was my mistake, I knew about the bridge but I thought it was after the winding hole, so I am moored here now until the 29^th January or later.

But every cloud has a silver lining, as its winter there is no charge (I think it's normally around £6 per night) and its 14 day (normally 48hrs max), there is electricity and a water point at each mooring, cost included in fee, so that's free at the moment, I have excellent internet, and not too bad TV, I can think of worse places to be stuck and I have plenty of time to look around Llangollen.

Current mooring

Totals Today: 9.5miles : 2 Lift bridges : 1 Tunnel (twice) : 1 Aqueduct

Wednesday, it must be Chirk.

It feels like I am hurrying through this last section of the Llangollen and I guess I am a bit in my hunt for a Wi-Fi signal, it’s not just so that I can post on this blog, I need online access for other things.

Wednesday 20^th January

It was a chilly frosty start but a bright beautiful day this was the scene at 7:30am.

As the boat was quite icy on the roof and I had a couple of locks facing me I waited for a thaw and set off at 11:30.

The first of the two New Marton locks was not too far ahead and I was soon emptying that in preparation.

More beautiful scenery as I wandered along and as seems to be the norm for this time of year hardly anyone else moving.

The second of the two locks was just ahead and on walking up to it a couple stopped with their cameras at the ready and took a series of pictures throughout the proceedings with me explaining how it all worked, the lady was from England but had never actually seen a boat go through a lock and the man was visiting from Canada so it was a bit of a mystery to him as well. At the cottage alongside the lock a chap was tending his garden, so as I was finishing off he offered to close the top gate for me, very nice of him, and as I left the lock he began chatting to the couple as well.

Views of the Welsh hills or mountains ? I’m not sure without my measuring stick J

A lovely day to cruise and apart from squeaking noise as I passed a moored boat on tick-over, which sounded like fanbelt but wasn’t, I stopped and checked, nothing much happened.

On the outskirts of Chirk I passed this wishing well.

It had some coins on the capping stones, I wonder if the owner put them there to start the ball rolling or if passing boaters were actually throwing money at it.

I intended to stop at Chirk before the aqueduct but the moorings were in heavy shade and not realising quite how much further there was I carried on and just around the bend you are faced with probably the second most famous aqueduct in the UK along with a beautiful viaduct carrying the railway immediately followed by the Welsh border and Chirk tunnel, it is quite a sight and quite a welcome to Wales.

The rail Viaduct runs higher up than the Aqueduct and gives splendid views between the arches as you cross.

Viaduct, Aqueduct and Tunnel in the distance

Looking across the valley between the viaduct arches

The Aqueduct is 70ft above the valley and the river Ceirog and was opened in 1801, impressive stuff but you cannot see the Aqueduct structure as you pass over it so I will hopefully stop on the return leg and take a look at it from below, fortunately the viaduct makes up for that lack of view.

Looking out and down over the valley and river.

Now I know where I am 

Just before the Tunnel at the end of the aqueduct .

I still cannot get my camera flash to operate in tunnels but here’s me leaving it, this tunnel is single working again, only one boat wide, and is 459 yards long built by Telford and has a towpath running through as Telford thought ‘legging’ was dangerous and  undignified.

Legging was how the boatmen used to propel the boat through tunnels without towpaths, two men lying on their backs across the roof of the boat their heads side by side and their feet on the tunnel sides, they would effectively walk along the tunnel sides pushing the boat through with their legs and feet, doing the work of the horse who has gone off for a coffee, on the longer tunnels ‘leggers’ were employed by the canal company to do this work and speed up passage.

Once out of the tunnel I carried on through woodland and moored for the night opposite Chirk Marina.

Still no Internet!

Tonights mooring

Totals Today: 6 miles : 2 locks : 1 aqueduct : 1 tunnel

Thursday 21^st

I set off at 10am into very cold misty weather  heading for Froncysyllte intending to stop there and see if I could get internet and if not move on to Llangollen.

First I had to negotiate Whitehouse tunnel at 191 yards long and single working it wasn’t going to be a problem.

All was going as normal as I began to enter, bow just inside when suddenly a grinding noise from beneath the boat and the stern slid sideways towards the left (non towpath) side of the portal and I ground to a halt, I had hit something beneath the water and wasn’t sure what, I tired gentle reverse but that did not work, I was about ¾ in and ¼ out so I walked along the gunnel taking my centre line and clambered off onto the towpath, I tried to pull the boat across but it wasn’t having that either, I got back on board and walked along the other side of the boat until I could get some purchase on the brickwork and leaning into it I managed to push the boat away from its jammed position back to the centre of the channel where it seemed to be ok again, back at the stern and with a slight sense of trepidation I applied gentle forward throttle and off I went as if nothing had happened.

Onwards through very cold damp misty woodland I was soon arriving at Froncysyllte but as I passed a moored boat the chap shouted ‘the aqueduct (Pontcysyllte) is frozen over, you may not be able to go over it, there’s a winding hole after the bridge’. Well that threw a spanner in the works, I wasn’t sure how to proceed but went through the lift bridge and when I got to the winding hole there was broken ice floating all over it, with the aqueduct just ahead but not quite visible and no further moorings marked on my guide book I decided I’d better wind (turn around) and head back to where the visitor moorings were. So I winded and headed back through the lift bridge, they take some winding up and down especially when you’ve only been through it a few minutes before!

Once moored I tried the internet, no hope!

I was now in a bit of a quandary, I had to continue running the engine for another couple of hours to charge the batteries and I was facing the wrong way to go over the aqueduct and into Llangollen with the nearest winding hole back further than where I had originally left from this morning, it was cold and misty and I was a bit fed up, say........ahhhhh.

TEA!

After tea I thought ok, I’ll go on my bike into Llangollen take my laptop, find a signal and all will be well with the world for today! I hadn’t used the bike for a while so I began to check the tires and get it ready when it started raining; I was a little more fed up, say...... ahhhhh..... poor Alan.

So the batteries charged the bike ready the rain stopped, I picked up my mobile wi-fi thingy to take with me and saw 4G available at one bar strength!!! as soon as I moved it went back to 2G which is worthless, I hovered it around and high up by the top of the cabin window in the left corner the 4G signal re-appeared, just there, nowhere else! I rigged up a support for it and powered up the laptop, amazingly it was a good signal, I downloaded the stuff I needed myself and checked out a few things and then thought I’d try to post on the blog, it was great all worked, pictures uploaded quickly I could not believe it.

So with some of the stress gone I thought I would walk up to the Pontcysyllte and have a look around, the advantage of being on foot meaning I could take some pictures without worrying about steering the boat, so here are a few!

View of the aqueduct across the misty valley from my mooring

Thats it! Looking along it on foot, tomorrow (hopefully) on the boat

Dee Valley

River Dee flowing under the aqueduct

Looking up at it from the steps leading down to the river Dee

It's known as 'The Stream in the Sky'

View of one of the arches that form the aqueduct

Misty view in the distance

Trevor basin and all the Anglo Welsh hire boats

The other end of Trevor basin, along on the left is 'Jones the Boats' how very  Welsh!

Friday I intend to cross the aqueduct, weather permitting, and continue into Llangollen.

Travel today:  2 miles : 1 Lift bridge (twice) : 1 Tunnel