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