Narrowboat Holiday 2010 – Day Five

Day 5 (27th July) was Abi’s birthday, so we started the day with some present opening (and some present nibbling, as she got a candy jewellery making kit from Auntie Sarah!)

Abi the birthday girl

After the presents were all opened, we set off back into Chester. We headed back to the water point we went to on Sunday at Tower Wharf and filled up again – we must have had a pretty low tank as it took ages! Once that was done we headed round the corner to the Northgate Staircase Locks. We were going up this time and Sarah and I went to see what the situation was. There was a boat in the middle lock going up and one in the top lock coming down, so it was safe for us to go into the bottom lock and wait. Unfortunately for us the boat that was coming down hadn’t got things quite right and had apparently left the top paddle open. This meant that it took forever for the middle and top lock to reach the same level as water kept on coming into the top lock!

Chestnut Thrush waiting in the bottom lock

At some point the error was noticed and the paddle was shut, and eventually they came level and swapped places. Richard was wondering what the problem was as he couldn’t see what was going on from his position on the back of our boat down in the bottom lock. Now the boat coming down was in the middle lock and we started the process of lowering him down and raising our boat up. Things went more smoothly after the initial problems and we finally exited the top lock about an hour after we came into the bottom lock. Just goes to show how easily mistakes can be made which slow everyone down. At least we weren’t in too much of a rush.

As we went through the city centre we decided to stop at the very convenient moorings right next to Iceland! We needed a bit of shopping so this was ideal It was really nice to just pop up the steps to road level and in to the shop! I was able to pick up pizzas for dinner and few extra treats as we had such a short walk back. After putting the shopping away and having some lunch we decided that we had time to have a wander round Chester before getting moving again.

The buildings in Chester are really interesting – a lot of the traditional black & white Tudor buildings and even older Medieval buildings. We took lots of photos of the buildings and then spotted a more unusual site of colourful painted rhinos, so started taking pictures of those too! The rhinos were part of “Rhino Mania” – basically there’s loads of rhinos, painted by different individuals and groups – they’re art, and a tourist attraction, and also a fundraising tool – after they’ve been on show around the city they will get auctioned off and the money raised will go to “Black Rhino Field Conservation Project in Kenya and Tanzania managed by Chester Zoo and the Hospice of the Good Shepherd, a Chester based charity”. We all enjoyed seeing them, especially Abi!

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We also spent some time wandering around the outside of Chester Cathedral straining our necks looking at all the different gargoyles and carvings of people and strange creatures. An amazing amount of work must have gone into all the decoration on the building.

Gargoyles on Chester Cathedral

After the Cathedral we found ourselves above the canal at the North Gate bridge, with the Bridge of Sighs nearby. We found out why the little tiny bridge was called the Bridge of Sighs – it linked the “gaol” with a chapel in the hospital and condemned prisoners would cross the bridge to get their last rites before being executed. It must have been tempting to jump off and risk the fall into the canal and the chance of escape!

Bridge of Sighs

The North Gate was very impressive and there was access on either side to go up onto the top of the city walls and walk along them.

The North Gate

Walking along the city walls

Such a lot of history in those walls. King Charles stood where we stood in 1645 watching his army be defeated on Rowton Moor.

Monument to King Charles watching his army being defeated

After our short walk along the wall we found steps down right next to where our boat was moored – very handy. We had a rest back on board the boat and looked at our purchases (we had visited a few shops on our walk) and then decided to set off out of Chester through the 5 locks out of the city. I didn’t take many photos in the locks as we’d seen them before, so there’s not much to show for it. We moored up for the night near the village of Waverton in a very nice spot.

Boat Log

Today:

Approx. distance travelled: 7 miles
Number of locks: 8

Total so far:

Approx. distance travelled: 52 1/2 miles
Number of locks: 30

Mooring:

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Narrowboat Holiday 2010 – Day Four

Day 4 (26th July) was Chester Zoo day! This was partly an early birthday treat for Abi, and partly just a fun day out for all of us! We’d originally aimed to have this day out on Abi’s birthday (27th) but realised we’d need to have the day out on 26th to allow enough time to get back to Anderton by Friday morning. So that’s why we were rushing to get her by the end of day 3.

So we got up early ready for our trip. We had a short cruise on the boat up to the zoo – just a couple of miles. We moored up by Bridge 134, Caughall Bridge. It was a damp morning but we didn’t let the weather put us off. We all put our rain coats on and set off from the boat. We had to walk about 1/2 mile up from the canal to the Zoo’s pedestrian entrance. It seemed quite strange going in the pedestrian entrance as it was also the main staff entrance. It was very quiet as the zoo had only just opened when we arrived, so there weren’t any crowds. The weather spoiled things a bit, but the sun did come out from time to time.

We saw a lot of animals, had a nice lunch in the cafe, saw some more animals, spent money in the gift shop, had a ride on the mono-rail, a ride on the waterbus, saw a few more animals, and then ran out of steam and decided it was time to head back to the boat. It was a great day, though tiring and rather damp!

Back on the boat we decided to get the boat facing the right way for the return trip tomorrow. This meant a trip up towards Ellesmere Port for a couple of miles to the next winding hole so we could turn round. The winding hole was about half way to Ellesmere Port near a village called Little Stanney. I steered most of the way up the winding hole but wasn’t keen on actually doing the winding! The winding hole wasn’t the biggest so I hopped off and hauled the stern back under the nearby bridge so we could get the bow round. It went well and I hopped back on and we set off back towards Chester. This time Richard was steering, and I cooked dinner We went back to a spot nearby where we’d moored to go to the zoo, and moored up for the night. A really peaceful spot with some birds singing, and a beautiful sky.

Lovely sky

Boat Log

Today:

Approx. distance travelled: 7 miles
Number of locks: 0

Total so far:

Approx. distance travelled: 45 1/2 miles
Number of locks: 22

Mooring:

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Narrowboat Holiday 2010 – Day Three

Day 3 (25th July) was my birthday, and we had a busy day planned. The aim was to get to the other side of Chester ready for a day out at Chester Zoo tomorrow (26th July). In order to do that we’d have to do 14 locks, which would be a new record for us.

After some present opening we set off for the nearby Bunbury staircase locks – our first ever staircase. This is a small staircase of just 2 locks. We joined a boat called Serenade with a friendly lady who was going through single-handed and appreciated me & Sarah doing the lock work so she could stay on her boat.

Bunbury Staircase Locks

So we began the staircase with Chestnut Thrush & Serenade in the top lock, going down (since turning off the Middlewich Branch we had begun going down instead of up!) and another boat in the bottom lock coming up. For some reason I found it hard to grasp the idea of people going up and down at the same time at first, but I got my head round it. You have to do a little maneuvering when the 2 locks become level, with boats moving one at a time, but you soon get things sorted and swap places prior to preparing to exit the staircase from opposite ends!

Two coming down, one going up (Chestnut Thrush is up there on the left)

After the maneuvring, Chestnut Thrush & Serenade waited in the bottom lock for it to empty before continuing on our way. We agreed with the lady from Serenade that we’d stay together through the next few locks. She was heading for Beeston so would be 3 more locks, which are often easier with a “buddy” – it stops your boat from wandering about in the lock as it fills or empties and and if you’re single-handed like she was it means you don’t have to keep hopping on and off your boat if someone else is doing the paddles & gates.

Chestnut Thrush & Serenade waiting for the bottom lock to empty

It was around this point that my Mum-in-Law texted me to say happy birthday and I texted back to say I was watching the boat sinking in the lock … bad choice of words as she was then afraid that I meant our boat was in trouble and was sinking! My attempts to explain saying “no, it’s not sinking, just going down” didn’t help much! LOL. I did get the message across though that all was well!

On leaving the Bunbury Staircase it was a matter of 1/2 mile or so to the next lock – Tilstone Lock.

Chestnut Thrush (& the kids) in the bottom of Tilstone Lock

Next came Beeston Stone Lock and Beeston Iron Lock. As you can gather from the names, one is made of stone, one of iron.

Beeston Stone Lock

Beeston Iron Lock

The iron lock had a sign on it saying that it had become distorted. We checked with Serenade as she was more experienced than us, but she was happy for us to go through together again, so we risked it and it went fine. We moored up soon after the Iron Lock as according to our map book there was somewhere to buy groceries nearby. Of course I had totally forgotten it was Sunday and when we found the tiny village shop, it was shut! So we headed back to the boat and continued on our way.

Next lock was Wharton’s Lock, from which we had a great view of Beeston Castle – very impressing spot for a castle, way up on a craggy hill in the middle of a fairly flat area – you can tell why they picked it as a place to build!

Wharton's Lock

Leaving Wharton’s Lock we had a long stretch without locks so I had a go at steering the boat – I relaxed a bit more this time and really started to enjoy it I steered for over an hour past moored boats and boats coming the other way I felt rather proud of myself! There was a very long stretch of long-term moorings so we couldn’t go very fast. It was interesting to see all the boats and their little bits of the canal bank that they’d personalised for themselves.

After this long stretch, we were coming into Chester and it was time for me to go back to lock duty with Sarah. First we came to Christleton Lock, then Greenfield Lock, then Tarvin Lock, Chemistry Lock and Hoole Lane Lock.

As we were coming through Greenfield Lock, Richard got talking to someone on another boat and they mentioned that there was a Sainsburys nearby. Apparently only 3 minutes walk from just before the previous lock. As we’d not managed to find a shop earlier we decided we should make a dash for it and get some shopping in before it shut. However the 3 minute estimate was a little low and it was more like 20 minutes so we got there hot and bothered and a bit cross about 5 minutes before it shut :-/ So we weren’t big fans of the people who’d told Rich it was only 3 minutes. But at least we got the shopping we needed!

We caught up with another hire boat on the way through these locks – ‘Oslo Fjord’. They’d been told that they should go through all locks alone and were finding it pretty hard going – Helen who was steering was really not enjoying the way the boat moved around so much in the locks (wide ones). After our good experience of buddying up with Serenade we suggested they go through with us, so we headed into Hoole Lane Lock together.

Hoole Lane Lock with Chestnut Thrush & our new buddy 'Oslo Fjord' approaching

After this lock there was a short break from locks as we came into the centre of the city. We passed busy canalside pubs where we briefly became a little self-conscious as they watched us go by. Then rounding a bend we came into a steep rock cutting which was very impressive to see. Up above us on the left we could see the city walls, and over our heads went old bridges like the Bridge of Sighs.

Rocky cutting & city walls

Bridge of Sighs from beneath

Shortly afterwards things became a little more modern as we approached the Northgate Staircase locks under a major road bridge. The Northgate Staircase is made up of three locks and takes a little more thought than a standard lock. The theory that I had learnt before leaving home was if you’re going up down (as we were) you need the first lock full and the other 2 empty. This theory is great, but if you arrive and others are already in the staircase it takes a little thought to see what the current situation is, and if it’s safe for you to enter at this point. When we arrived there was a boat making its way down so it was safe for us to start at the top as they would be emptying the locks as they went down leaving them just as wanted them. We filled the top lock and then brought Chestnut Thrush & Oslo Fjord in together the make the trip down. I found this staircase quite amazing – just the feat of building it and the apparent simplicity of the way it works. Also the location was interesting with the contrasts of modern & historical, speed & slowness, industrialisation & nature … the busy road bridge, the locks, a busy rail bridge at the bottom, the city walls to our left and a little bit of a park to the side.

Top of Northgate Staircase Locks

Looking down Northgate Staircase Locks (including passing train!)

Interesting wood sculptures in the little park alongside the locks

After exiting the bottom lock we made a sharp right turn towards Tower Wharf where we stopped at the water point to fill up our water tank. It was raining by now, and it was quite welcome after all the hard work on the staircase. Some of the paddles were pretty stiff, and the gates were very heavy. At this point I ducked indoors to make some dinner as it was getting late and we were all tired and hungry – a quick meal of hot dogs did the trick! We got a few more miles of cruising in before we had to call it a day and get Abi to bed a little on the late side.

All in all an exhausting but exhilarating birthday!

Boat Log

Today:

Approx. distance travelled: 16 miles
Number of locks: 14

Total so far:

Approx. distance travelled: 38 1/2 miles
Number of locks: 22

Mooring:

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Narrowboat Holiday 2010 – Day Two

Day 2 (24th July) began with a visit from the swans and cygnets from the night before. We didn’t have much bread with us so I’d tried to put the children off feeding them the previous night, but had to give in when they returned and looked so cute

It was an early start as we planned to get quite a distance done. Because we wanted to spend the day in Chester Zoo, we were going to lose a day’s worth of cruising so the plan was to get there as quickly as possible leaving us with a more leisurely return trip back to Anderton. So we set off, soon coming to Croxton Flash where we saw one of the first herons of the trip.

Heron in Croxton Flash

Not far after the Flash, we crossed Croxton Aqueduct. Nothing approaching the amazing aqueducts we crossed last year (Pontcysyllte & Chirk) but this was quite a different trip!

Croxton Aqueduct

The first lock of the trip was not far away as we came into Middlewich. Middlewich Big Lock was the first wide lock we had encountered as our last trip was on the Llangollen Canal which only had narrow locks (and we only went through 2!). It looked enormous, but as the trip went on we got used to the size!

Chestnut Thrush in Middlewich Big Lock

A short break followed as we came further into Middlewich, then after a bridge came 3 locks in a row, known as Middlewich 3 Locks. These ones were narrow ones like we were used to! The children were helping out with me & Auntie Sarah on these locks – working hard and pushing the gates open and closed

Ben & Abi working hard on the last of the Middlewich 3 Locks

When we reached the top of the 3 Locks we passed the Andersen Boats base and noticed a shop so decided to moor up past the next lock and pop back for a visit. We turned right under a low bridge onto the start of the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. The beginning of this canal is actually called the Wardle Canal – a very short canal of only 47 metres according to a plaque on the bridge – just reaching from the bridge to the end of the nearby Wardle Lock. A nearby information sign said that this was due to different canal companies wanting control of this important junction. The Trent & Mersey owned the small Wardle Canal and so controlled the junction and could charge tolls to pass through it. Richard had to wait just past the bridge while we emptied the lock for him to come in.

Chestnut Thrush in the Wardle Canal, waiting to enter Wardle Lock

Once the lock was ready, Richard steered Chestnut Thrush in, and up she went

Chestnut Thrush in Wardle Lock

We moored up soon after the lock and walked back to the shop at the Andersen base, where we bought some badges and icecream We also met a cute baby who was spending the day with his mum who was working in the shop! Back on the boat we headed out of Middlewich under several bridges before reaching Stanthorne Lock, just after Stanthorne Bridge. While waiting for the lock to empty so Richard could steer into it, a large herd of cows came across the bridge giving us a bit of a laugh as they all seemed to give us funny looks wondering what we were doing hanging around!

Cows crossing Stanthorne Bridge

A few miles of quiet cruising later, we arrived at Minshull Lock where we had to wait our turn to go up, then after passing Venetian Marina we came to Cholmondeston Lock where we had an audience as we locked (I hear they’re known as gongoozlers! )

Cholmondeston Lock

After this lock there was another mile or so of cruising until we reached Barbridge Junction which is where the Middlewich Branch connects with the main Shropshire Union Canal. Richard expertly negotiated a sharp right turn and off we went down the Shroppie towards Chester. I had a go at steering, which I found very scary at first! I’d done only a small amount in our last trip and having control of our huge boat was quite alarming at first. During this holiday I became a lot more confident and towards the end was happily negotiating bridges, passing boats and moored boats, all at the same time!

Barbridge Junction

We decided to moor before we reached the Bunbury Staircase Locks and found a nice spot to moor at Calveley where there was a nearby pub marked on the map. The pub, the Davenport Arms, was a short walk away over the canal and over the railway, and across a road. On the way there we were surprised to pass a field of Alpacas!

Alpacas at Calveley

The Davenport Arms had a fun little playground for the children to enjoy while we waited for our dinner to be cooked, and the food was very nice – a good place to visit if you’re cruising in this area.

Playground in the garden at the Davenport Arms, Calveley

After our meal we retired to the boat and it was soon time for bed … the grown ups not long after the children after a busy day with lots of miles and locks under our belts

Boat Log

Today:

Approx. distance travelled: 14 miles
Number of locks: 8

Total so far:

Approx. distance travelled: 22 1/2 miles
Number of locks: 8

Mooring:

View Larger Map

Narrowboat Journey map

Just thought I’d throw in this map of our narrowboat journey. More blogging of our trip to come.

View Larger Map

Holiday

Well, as you may have gathered, I didn’t blog from my phone while we were on the narrowboat. Partly due to the fact that I was knackered at the end of each day, but also because the mobile signal varied alot as we went along and some evenings I had barely any signal at all! I did jot down notes of where we went & numbers of locks etc, so I will be blogging over the next few days/weeks. I took a quite ridiculous number of photos so I shall be putting some on here and on Facebook. In the mean time … here’s one of my favourites …

Preparation

I am preparing for our narrowboat holiday by making sure that I know what I am doing with this WordPress app on my iPhone. Messed up first time but hopefully this one will work. I might blog as we go along this year rather than doing it after like I did last year. On the other hand, there will be a lot of locks so I might find I’m too tired to blog!

Narrowboating Day 6 (Friday 7th August)

By morning he had gone, and we got up and dressed and set off to see the famous Ellesmere after which the town is named. The story goes, that Mrs Ellis lived near a lovely spring, and all around the other people had no water, so they came to her, and she shared her water with them. Eventually she got tired of sharing and refused to let them have the water any more. In the night the spring overflowed and filled the whole area and Mrs Ellis was lost under the water, never to be seen again. Fun legend Of course the scientific explanation is that the meres were created by ice breaking off glaciers back in the Ice Age – believe what you will!

Anyway, so we went to see this mere, and it was beautiful It helped that it was a beautiful day of course, but still.

There was a little playground which the children played in for a while, then we found a load of swans on the water, as well as a very noisy and friendly goose! The swans were quite viscious and squabbled and attacked eachother as we fed them, but the good, though noisy was much more friendly and would eat out of our hands!

We walked around the mere towards the visitor centre, past lots more geese, ducks and swans, and found an icecream and had a look in the shop. Then we spotted the steam boat “Lady Katherine” and had to go for a ride She took us all around the mere on a lovely trip in the sunshine.

Unfortunately sometime during or after the steamboat ride, Richard did something to his back and was in pain, so it was a painful walk back to our mooring for him. He headed straight back to get some painkillers while the rest of us dawdled back looking in shops on the way and picking up some souvenirs.

Back at the boat we decided to head off to find a nice quiet place to moor for the night after our noisy night by Tesco. Richard was in a lot of pain so Sarah & I had more work to do than normal. We went through Ellesmere tunnel and past Blake Mere and Cole Mere, before reaching Whixall Moss. We found a fabulous place to moor not far before the Prees Branch juction – it was beautiful – no people or noise for miles around, all we could see was the moss and the sky and the trees. Lovely As the sun went down there was a gorgeous sunset to see. Best mooring of the holiday, definitely

Narrowboating Day 5 (Thursday 6th August)

We decided to make our way to Ellesmere today, and moor there for the night, so we set of from Froncysyllte in the morning. After crossing over the almost invisible aqueduct we’d discovered the night before, we headed round the bend towards the Whitehouse Tunnel. Once through that it wasn’t far to the next tunnel – Chirk Tunnel. This was the long dark one – too long to see the other end. We didn’t know what was coming through, so I headed off armed with a large torch through the tunnel to the other end. All very exciting! I passed several boats on the way through so was counting them so I could let the others know when I reached the other end. I rang Sarah when I got there to tell her how many were coming through, and asked the boats who had just arrived to wait as there were several waiting with our boat to come through. I had quite a wait until it was our boat’s turn to come through but it was no hardship – a beautiful sunny day and the aqueduct and railway viaduct right there to look at! I managed to grab a quick photo as a train went over which was cool

After some time, our boat emerged from the tunnel, and I was there waiting to see it come out …

Getting closer!

I hopped back on to the boat, and we continued across the aqueduct and round the bend past Chirk Bank, then Rhoswiel and through the lovely countryside on the way back towards the locks we came through on the way up. We spent some time sitting on the roof of the boat which was lovely in the sunshine – relaxing and enjoying the scenery as we serenely floated along

It was a calm and uneventful trip through the locks again – I do enjoy the locks

Somewhere around here, I can’t remember whether it was before or after the locks, we found a shop on a boat. We’d passed it on the way up but hadn’t stopped. This time we moored up and went to have a look. It was called Spider and was fab! The lady who lived there made jewellery, dream catchers and all sorts of things on her workshop boat. The shop boat was like a lovely grotto, with all kinds of things dangling all around you as you went down into it. I bought several gorgeous necklaces with some of my birthday money and each of the children got a little something. They had a lovely old dog too who got a lot of attention from the kids I wish I could remember where abouts it was!

After more lovely countryside, we passed Hindford where we’d moored on the way up at the Jack Mytton Inn. Then we passed the Maestermyn base and Frankton Junction before coming into Ellesmere. We stopped at the water point, and then cruised up the Ellesmere arm to see if there were any moorings at the end by Tescos. We were in luck – there was space for a few more boats right up the end, so we turned round and moored up for the evening. After a trip to tesco for supplies, we decided to head into the town to get chips for dinner. Unfortunately the convenience of being close to Tesco was marred a little by a few locals – there seemed to be a lad fishing opposite us, with some beers, and he just couldn’t stop talking to his mate … late into the night he chatted on and on, throwing in a few swear words here and there. We ended up shutting most of the windows to try and avoid having to listen to his life story. We could still hear him but thankfully couldn’t make out the words anymore with the windows shut, so it was easier to ignore and go to sleep!

Narrowboating Day 4 (Wednesday 5th August)

We had some ducky visitors while we were getting dressed and eating breakfast. One of them was brave enough to join us on the boat!

After breakfast we headed off for a ride on the Llangollen Railway.

We rode the line to the end at Carrog and hopped off for a quick snack and drink in the station cafe. Then back on the train back towards Llangollen, but we got off at Berwyn to go and see the Horseshoe Falls. I expected to see signposts to Horseshoe Falls at the station, as it was mentioned on the leaflets, but there was nothing! We wandered vaguely one way then another crossing over the river and going a little way up the side of the valley on the other side. We happened upon some steps that looked interesting and found a carpark complete with map of the area. Lucky for us that we could then find our way to the falls – without that map we would have been stumped!

The falls themselves are beautiful, though the children were a little disappointed. I think that they had an image of the Niagara Falls or something like that in their minds so were expecting something bigger! The Horseshoe Falls are not at all high, but are quite wide, in a horseshoe shape (obviously!). It was very picturesque.

Horseshoe Falls were created to make a pool to supply the canal, so after some time to take photos, we decided to walk back along the towpath to our boat. It didn’t look too far on the map … It was a nice walk but rather further than we thought and we were rather exhausted when we got back to the boat. Along the way we spotted a Motor Museum which “the boys” wanted a look at, and fortunately they had sweeties for sale in their little gift shop as well as many toy cars and bikes. This cheered the children up who were getting a little weary!

Further along the tow path we met a horse drawn narrowboat which was lovely to see They up past the point where other boats can’t continue as they don’t go so deep in the water – I guess without the engine they are lighter … or maybe they’re just a different shape. Anyway it was exciting to stand back while the horse went past us pulling the boat

As we continued along the towpath we found the place where the horse drawn boat trips start and there was another being prepared. Abi had her picture taken with the horse that was to pull this boat:

They’re such big strong horses – very impressive how they pull a boat full of people. Must be so quiet too without the engine rumbling away.

Once we returned to the boat and had a rest and some food, we decided to set off back towards the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. Before that we would need to go through the narrows, and this time we weren’t following Jones the Boats, so Sarah hopped off and walked ahead to let us know when it was clear to enter the narrow parts. She then had to spend some time waiting for us to catch up in the sunshine

After the narrow parts we were approaching the Pontcysyllte. Not realising how far along we were, I had got on with making some dinner, and it just so happened that when the bowls of pasta were ready to eat, we arrived at the aqueduct! So in a slightly embarassing manner, we crossed the aqueduct eating our bowls of pasta, looking like crossing this impressive aqueduct was nothing special for us! It gave a few onlookers a giggle and we heard a child saying “look, they’re eating their dinner!”

This crossing of the aqueduct was done in bright sunshine which was lovely When we came across the first time it had been quite drizzly. It was just as impressive the 2nd time, and we were excited despite nonchalantly eating our dinner!

Soon after coming off the aqueduct we reached Froncysyllte again, and this time, after going through the lifting bridge (which I opened) we moored up there. In the evening we went for a little walk into the village, and later I walked further up the canal in search of a mysterious “other” aqueduct which was marked on the map but we hadn’t seen it as we’d approached (when coming the other way). We spotted the aqueduct eventually – not very noticable from the canal – just a bit of wall visible, but when you looked over the wall you could see a track going underneath a huge arch beneath us. It was in the midst of trees too so could hardly be seen from the surroundings I imagine. I guess that’s why it’s not so well known as the Pontcysyllte, apart from the fact it’s smaller.

Then back to the boat for a quiet night’s sleep in a lovely location