It Gets Worse

It’s our own fault. We should have stayed a la Plan A. But it didn’t look like rain – despite the Met Office 5 day forecast saying: Rain and lots of it, nah, we’ll go on. So we left about 11 ish – no one about. Chirk Bank was nice and so was Chirk aqueduct but then we got to the tunnel (one way) and had a bit of a wait – understatement as about 12 boats came through! Then it was our turn – normal tunnels are bad enough but going against the flow of millions of gallons of water is well, like driving a canal boat uphill!

Well, I waited for a bit but to be honest and I don’t mean to be funny but I never saw one move!
The Poachers pub. Hmm, it’s a big Marston’s pub, rotisserie and burgers n chips plus 3 of their own beers . . .hmm, maybe , maybe not
It did get to be very scenic and cottage-y
Approaching the Chirk aqueduct with a the train viaduct overhead
Quite impressive
Then the tunnel
And a bit of a wait
Gloomy inside and v-e-r-y slow going
And another one! But shorter.
One rather minor bonus – Viv’s lights come on!
And on to Froncysyllte
With a glimpse of the big one in the distance
And then we were there!
Viv walked over with Toby, doing the photos . . Steve drove – hangin on tightly
For although there’s a railing on the towpath side – there’s nothing on the offside! Just the foot or so over the box and then the 126 foot drop down to the river Dee.
The aqueduct is 1007 feet long and over 100 years old! The steel structure is sealed together with Welsh flannel and lead dipped in boiling sugar -it hardly leaks at all.
This picture was taken later for when we came over there was an absolute melee of boats – 4 hire boats, two trip boats . . . and all in the way!
Our destination was to veer right and stay in Trevor basin – full of hire boats and stuff – here you can see Adagio over on the left. Just enough room for the aqueduct trip boat to chug between us. We’ll stop here for the night and then up to LLangollen early tomorrow.
Beyond the bridge there are some moorings but these were all full up. And boy did it rain! Here are some short video sequences of the trip:

Over the aqueduct – note the slow progress!
Showing the slow progress through the second tunnel
Getting across the aqueduct, very slowly! Notice Steve isn’t sitting on the other side!
And over! Gripping! Well I was.