Wednesday:
We were at the New Marton bottom lock 5 minutes after leaving our overnight stop.We had one boat ahead of us waiting to go up through the lock after one came down. Boat came down, the one in front went up, another came down, we went up and on it went. The 2 New Marton locks were busy. While filling up with water again, we met a Maltese family who were waiting to go down the lock and they were terrified, it was their first one. Gary helped them through the top lock, explaining about raising and lowering paddles before opening the gate. They were so grateful and seemed a bit more comfortable to tackle the next lock.
Onwards to Chirk, with the reasonably impressive Chirk Aqueduct and the Chirk Tunnel (Darkie Tunnel).The aqueduct was built between 1796 & 1801, is 21 metres above the Ceiriog Valley and spans 220 metres. The Tunnel was built in 1801 and is 420 metres long. Both are one way. Before we entered the tunnel, we turned on our headlight to let anyone at the other end know we were in the tunnel and therefore not to enter. We had to wait for 10 mins or so to let 2 other boats out of the tunnel before we could enter. Going through the tunnel was quite eerie. There is no real frame of reference to give perspective. All we see is a dark tunnel with a light from the boat shining on the inside of the tunnel, giving the impression that we’re not moving. It was good fun.
Our next event to look forward to was crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It became a world heritage site in 2009. It took 10 years to build and was opened in 1805, is 307 metres long and 38 metres above the River Dee. We didn’t have to wait, so straight across. Hope the videos we took work out. Across the other side, we turned the boat around and Gary hopped off to follow the road town to a vantage point on the road bridge way below. We crossed back over the aqueduct, turned around again and came back so Gary could take some more video of us crossing the aqueduct. We picked Gary up and managed a 9 point turn back into the basin to head up the much narrower canal to Llangollen.
We planned a reasonably early stop tonight, about 5 pm, with the final stage into Llangollen in the morning. A few minutes before the formal moorings, an alarm went off in the boat and the battery warning light came on. We hammered a couple of stakes into the ground to tie up to and stopped for the night and to ring the boat yard. They think it is probably a broken belt and will be here around 9 tomorrow morning. No real hold up.
The canal has so many turns that Gary is spending a lot of time working out whether our photos were taken in Wales or England. We’ve been in and out many times. At least we know that from here to Llangollen is Wales.
Next stop Llangollen and, hopefully, a short visit to the internationally acclaimed Eisteddfod which started yesterday and ends this weekend.
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