It is more than a week since we updated our blog principally
because internet access on the Welsh borders has been patchy and a visit by Lucy
for the Bank Holiday weekend meant we were chatting rather than ‘blogging’.
We’ve travelled up the Shropshire
Union Canal
before turning onto the Llangollen Canal towards Wales. The Shropshire Union was built by Thomas
Telford and has huge cuttings and embankments to allow the canal to follow a
straight line across the map. Locks and
tunnels are cut through solid rock, like this tunnel:
Audlem was delightful as was Nantwich
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| The 'Shroppie Fly' pub at Audlem Wharf |
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| Nantwich |
We loved this sign for a “secret” Nuclear Bunker which is
now a tourist attraction:
We visited markets, Market Drayton on Wednesday, Nantwich on
Thursday and we were too late for the market in Whitchurch on Friday. Ian bought a new waterproof hat, which gives
a clue as to the state of the weather lately:
Soon after Nantwich we turned left and climbed the Hurleston
locks at the start of the Llangollen
Canal:
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| Hurleston Locks |
The famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was the highlight of the
last few days. From a boat only a few
inches separate the trough full of water from a drop of 126 feet into the River
Dee. Astonishingly this Aqueduct built
in 1805 has remained watertight with no further maintenance. It is lined with a mixture of Welsh flannel
and lead dipped in boiling sugar. We
walked underneath at one end and there were only a few drips of water leaking.
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| Pontcysyllte Aqueduct from below |
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| The view from the boat down to the River Dee |
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| The nearest thing to flying in a narrowboat! |
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| The crew crossing the Aqueduct - guess what the weather was like. |
We moored at Llangollen and walked the last mile and a half
of narrow and shallow canal (too much so for narrowboats and nowhere to turn
round) to the Horseshoe Falls on the River Dee which provides the flow of water
down the canal to the Shropshire Union, so this canal has a definite flow, more
like a river.
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| Horseshoe Falls |
As well as the huge aqueduct there is a shorter one at Chirk
and a couple of tunnels. Since all these
features are one way and there were a lot of boats, progress was pretty slow.
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| Leaving Chirk Tunnel and venturing onto Chirk Aqueduct |
We are now heading back to the Shropshire Union pausing at
Ellesmere to shop at Tesco. It is an odd
fact that Tesco seems to have more canalside supermarkets than the other big
four. The basin at Ellesmere is
delightful and popular with boaters.
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| Ellesmere - note this is not Ellesmere Port which is better known |
As a boat you can also hold up the traffic as at this lifting bridge:
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| Wrenbury Lift Bridge |
We came across this boat today which was presumably going
rather too fast round a bend and finished up in a field:
Tomorrow we will return to the Shropshire Union and we'll be
heading East to pick up the Macclesfield
Canal as our chosen route towards Manchester.
Secret Nuclear Bunkers
ReplyDeleteWe've also been amused by a sign to our Essex Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelveden Hatch. I ate in its canteen, on a 'Bunker Bash' day and found it surreal and chilling. This entrance was through a square hole sawn in the concrete shielding using diamond dust coated steel wire in a loop that ran continuously for days (or was it weeks?). The resulting surface looked polished, cutting through gravel, reinforcing rods etc. Very good quality concrete, about 12' thick I think. (Why did they cut the hole - Elf 'n Safety of course - not enough fire exits!)
William and Daphne
PS I see that Leo 2 was in the Thames Pageant. Wot a shime abart the wevver