The usual wander round town, bwfore I left Ellesmere - down by the lake I met two cyclists who'd left Wolverhampton at 5am, and were going to be very early to meet their partners in Llangollen for lunch...I told them about my trip along the canal that took three days, many years ago - to be fair they were using road bikes, and were the serious cyclist type. Horses for courses, or something.
back on the canal, a fairly inoffensive journey until it got to the fun bits... the first aquaduct is Chirk, alongside a railway viaduct, and reassuring ledges on either side:
further on, though, we have Pontcysyllte, which just has a metal trough with a towpath on one side, and nothing on the other...
so what I can see from the deck is this:
Crawled through the narrow stretches into Llangollen in the rain, winded, moored & paid (they provide water & power points, which I don't need, but I'm more accepting rather than grudging about the £6 a night they charge here).
Having already turned around, I'm facing home, in a way; Llangollen was my furthest destination, so although I'll largely be returning home a different route, I'll be returning rather than going. I've got two weeks, perhaps a little more, before I'm back at work, and then after that the rest of the journey will be in the bits in between work, weddings & festivals of on sort or another. canalplan suggests I can get back to Brentford by then if I put my metaphorical foot down, but that's not the point of the trip. I like to be in a place for a short while, rather than just pass it. If I didn't, I may as well get an air conditioned 4x4 for transport...
I'll post this then try to sort out the pics later, it doesn't seem to want to play at the moment. It's still heavy rain here, but I'll be heading into town whatever tonight, and tomorrow should be better (metcheck says so).
1 comment:
I remember that aqueduct - in about 1974 we hired a boat from Wootton Wawen (the Marco Polo), picked up my mother's parents on the way through Brum, and Llangollen was where we turned round too. I think there's still a lock key hanging next to the attic door in my mother's house.
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