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!