Category Archives: General

A Llangollen Afternoon

With the early-ish start from Froncysyllte, we’d actually made Llangollen in time for an afternoon wander, even though the 6 miles and no locks took three hours – slow going. The walk down to the town from the basin is full of interest…

The road descends steeply across the canal. You can carry on round some tight and steep bends, and end up on the main road at an amazing taxidermy workshop. Or you can drop down to Llangollen Wharf, where there’s ice cream, teas, and a chance to say hello to Taffy, who pulls the horse-drawn trip boat up to Horseshoe Falls. Then some steep steps down onto the same road.

Either way you end up the station, and the bridge over the River Dee.

With steam engines running every day during the summer, and a cafe on the platform, the station’s a busy spot. It’s a lovely line, climbing up further into the mountains, and we’d had a lovely day trip some years previously. They’ve extended it a little further, but it was a bit late in the afternoon to investigate this – we’d have had to take the last train out and come straight back – so decided to maybe go on an expedition on Saturday.

The crew seemed to be having some kind of committee meeting over the couplings, but the train eventually departed.

Walking along the river we noticed a family of young rats whizzing in and out of the rocks below the promenade railings. You’re never very far from a rat, but it’s not often you see them so boldly visible when lots of people are around.

As St. Collen’s church here is also noted for its carved ceiling and hammer beamed roof, we thought we’d better continue our exploration of such items even though we were now definitely in Wales. Then a wander back through town, spotting likely places for an evening meal off the boat. There are worse ways to spend a warm if dull Friday afternoon.

Across the Stream in the Sky

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Until the Captain had decided for us, we’d originally planned to overnight in Froncysyllte (or Fron as it is popularly known). Having failed to do that, we’d toyed with the idea of walking down and visiting the well know Aqueduct Inn for some evening refreshment, but in the end decided not to. Shortly after setting off again on a gloomy Thursday morning, it was clear that the pub had been painted a particularly lurid yellow colour that would doubtless have hurt the eyes on a sunny evening!

It was also clear that there was quite a queue to cross Pontcysyllte Aqueduct but we snuck on the end of a convoy without too much trouble. Apart from the name (a tautology, as Pontcysyllte pretty much means Cysyllte Bridge), this amazing construction is rightly a world heritage site. We’ve crossed it numerous times over the years, and it’s always a thrill, whatever the weather, and no matter how busy. And if you want an interesting exercise, and have mastered the spelling of Pontcysyllte, try and find two people who agree on the pronunciation…

Heading upstream against the flow is slow going, and there’s little to stop the driver, invariably on the left, from getting a nasty dose of vertigo: there’s no Elf ‘n Safety stuff at all. Also it’s a bit like steering through a narrow tunnel that’s lost its roof: just as difficult.

If you don’t suffer, it’s a good place to watch the local footy team, but the Chief Cook was steering and determined not to look down.

Across the other side is Trevor Basin: always a busy nightmare as there’s a narrowboat and day-boat hire base, someone running horse drawn tourist cruises, the hire boaters not going on to Llangollen trying to turn round and go back again, loads of gongoozlers etc. etc. And a very tight turn under a narrow bridge onto the Llangollen arm that most hire boaters take several crashes to negotiate.

Originally just a water feeder, the navigable channel from Trevor to Llangollen is very narrow and shallow with a consequently strong flow, and contours along the side of the spectacular Dee Valley. There are several sections where only one boat can pass, and you can’t see the far end from the start, so the wise boater sends an advance party off on foot with some kind of mobile communication. The unwise can end up reversing a long way…

Getting through the final narrow stretch high above the town, there’s a pleasant basin surrounded by the mountains to moor up in, completed with electrics, and tying up there gives quite a sense of achievement. It’s five minutes downhill to the town, and the basin overlooks the Eisteddfod festival site (that’s the permanent marquee in the first picture).

With Song & Dance put to bed, and wired up (good for the batteries), it was time for an afternoon snack…

Paddling Upstream to Llangollen

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Most canals are fairly static when it comes to water. Water is poured into the summit pound (and, sometimes elsewhere) to replace that “lost” when passing through a lock. As water is frequently scarce, this is the reason that emptying a full lock or filling a empty lock unnecessarily (e.g. when you’re above an empty lock, and someone is approaching from below but still a few minutes off) is considered very poor form. If you’re moored up on most canals, there is a modest movement of water in the general direction of “downhill”, but not enough to be of any real concern.

However, the Llangollen canal is used to as a feeder to transport water from the Welsh mountains in the Cerriog Valley above Llangollen at Horseshoe Falls, down to a large reservoir at Hurlestone Junction, from where it goes on to Manchester (or somewhere!).

(This picture of Horseshoe Falls, technically the start of the canal, was taken on an earlier visit in 2007).

This transporting of water means there is a considerable flow down the Llangollen Canal at all times, making it more like a river. There are two significant effects resulting from this. Firstly, each lock has a large by-wash channel which carries water down around the lock when boats are not moving through – a bit a weir on a river. For some reason here, these inevitably enter and exit the main channel just above and below the lock gates (unlike most river locks, which give you much more room), and cause major cross currents just by the lock itself. Just what you need when you’re trying to slot a 58 ft by 6ft 8in boat into a 72 ft by 7 ft brick slot without crashing into anything and destroying all the crockery.

The second effect is that while the canal is relatively wide and deep, the flow is fairly negligible, but when the canal narrows, Bernoulli’s principle means that the flow speeds up considerably. The canal narrows at every bridge hole, sometimes to little more than the width of the boat, and heading up stream you suddenly find yourself going nowhere, halfway under a bridge. And when you finally pop out the other side, the boat suddenly surges forward again.

It’s even worse in long narrow tunnels like that at Chirk, or in long narrow aqueducts. To keep going upstream, you need a significant amount of power to overcome the downhill flow and keep moving forward against the fast flow, but there’s something called prop walk which tries its hardest to screw the boat around, and in a cramped tunnel it can make it nearly impossible to track straight down the middle without scrubbing the front on one wall and the stern on the other. Deep joy. And scraped paintwork. Guaranteed.

It’s a lot easier going downhill! Or if you must go uphill, use a horse.

Chocolate-less in Chirk

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Having originally decided to get to Ellesmere and assess the situation, it subsequently seemed that it was worth making a determined assault on the Llangollen summit. Song & Dance needs an oil change and service fairly shortly, and the marina in Ellesmere can fit us in next Tuesday, so we had just under a week to potter somewhere. A combination of hire boat base turn-round days, and the rumour that many of these hire-boaters were only interested in going as far as The Unpronounceable Viaduct before heading back meant that Friday and Saturday could be reasonable days to tackle the final stretch. And so, bidding Ellesmere farewell for a few days, we set off, having decided to try and get somewhere near Chirk base camp to put us in a good position.

The canal winds around the contours a bit, and the countryside is progressively less flat than the mosses and meres East of Ellesmere, as one approaches Lower Frankton, Frankton Junction, Welsh Frankton, Welsh Wales and so on. Meandering along the border, Song & Dance seemed to be one of very few boats heading uphill, while there seemed to be a never ending stream of boats coming the other way. The Llangollen Canal was living up to its reputation as the busiest spot on the network.

After some delay getting through the two St. Martins locks (mainly caused by a long queue of boats coming the other way, and a fund raising exercise at one of them, causing some degree of chaos), a late lunch ensued, out in the sticks, with an open view on the towpath side (unusual), and far off vistas of the Welsh Hills mountains.

And then fairly quickly you start getting closer and closer to the scenery; at Chirk Bank you suddenly realise you’re on the side of quite a deep valley, before launching across Chirk Aqueduct, which takes you into Wales properly: one minute soaring high above countryside, the next diving underground through Chirk Tunnel. The aqueduct is accompanied by a rather fine railway viaduct.

Although not overly long, Chirk Tunnel is always a bit of a challenge – a subject for another post – and one eventually emerges into a long deep cutting by Chirk Station and Chirk Castle. With loads of downstream traffic still milling around the upstream tunnel entrance, we decided not to try and stay at the visitor moorings there, although we knew Chirk well – we had some friends who lived in the nearby village until they passed a few years ago. There’s normally an overpowering smell of hot chocolate along this part of the canal: it passes by a large Cadbury’s chocolate factory, but today, not a whiff!

We knew there were reasonable moorings just before The Great Unpronounceable, but as we approached the nearly unpronounceable Froncysyllte, the Captain announced that he rather liked the view over the steep valley down to the River Dee, and jumped off to explore while further we were still cruising. Fortunately there was a suitable proper job visitor mooring about 100 yards further down, so we called it a day – we called it Wednesday – and retrieving Sir from the woods we settled down for a well earned bottle of the red stuff.

Ferret on a String

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From the Duddlestone (Tuesday nights place of repose) to Ellesmere you pass through Whixall Moss, then the Shropshire Lake District. The former is a somewhat odd, if flat, landscape, thinly populated, with a few lift bridges, and largely designated as a Nature Reserve. The canal itself has long straight sections, and isn’t – of itself – very interesting. We’d originally intended to stop and follow one of the Nature Reserve guided walks, but suitable mooring spots are thin on the ground, and we ended up saving it for the return trip.

Further on, the canal skirts a series of lakes. The first one – Cole Mere – is supposedly a good spot for spotting the birds, but is set well below the canal, with a wooded hillside keeping guard. Mooring up for lunch, we wandered across the canal and down on to the mere’s perimeter path, but that was still well back from the water, and the trees prevented us seeing much of anything. Ah well.

Mind you, we did see one thing neither of us had seen before: someone taking their ferret for a walk on a lead. The ferret didn’t seem that keen: it was more a case of taking it for a drag. (Cue remarks about the old “pet rock” joke). Apparently it’s not that uncommon: we’re reliably informed that there was one at Sidmouth during Folk Week, and for many years one in Farnham. You can even get you ferret some fancy haut couture kit…

With provisions running short, we decided to abandon the proposed bird bothering walk, and try and make Ellesmere instead. After a pleasant hour’s cruise in improving sunshine, we turned into the Ellesmere Arm and – against all expectations – found the perfect spot half way down. The Captain likes the Ellesmere Arm: cricket club on one side, wide, busy but well behaved and sociable towpath so that dog walkers can be seen from afar, and a nice open wood/hedgerow bordering it, to explore and hide in.

The staff like the Ellesmere Arm because as well as being an amenable spot to pass the night, it’s within trolley pushing/borrowing distance from a large supermarket, and five minutes walk to a pleasant market town High Street, with a decent selection of shops, restaurants and pubs to choose from.

That said, a restaurant we’d previously favoured, down in the cellars below a building in the main square, was now an oddball church. God works in mysterious ways.

Grinding Through Grindley

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Leaving Wrenbury on the Monday morning, the main challenge was the Grindley Brook Locks. Heading upstream, there are three locks in a flight very close to each other, followed by a three chamber staircase. Queues here are legendary, and a three up three down regime normally enforced through the staircase: on a bad day, six hours delay has been quoted. It seemed as though the resident lockkeeper’s main role was that of refereeing the punch-ups between those near the front of the queue, and arriving hire boat crews who had misjudged and were now going to be late getting back to their base (which is expensive).

But first, passing through Willey Moor Lock, it seemed rude not to moor up and partake of their beer and sandwiches for lunch.

Arriving at Grindley Brook mid afternoon, there was virtually no one around apart from gongoozlers in the the tea shop! Working the three single locks ourselves we met one boat coming down, then with the lockkeeper setting up the staircase for us, we covered all the six chambers in about 40 minutes. Something of a record, we reckon.

The lockkeeper said that Thursdays used to be the really bad day, but one of the canal guides mentioned this in a recent edition, following which some of the traffic now makes an effort to get through on the Wednesday. So now both days are busy and best avoided. Ho hum. Mind you, the hire fleets now spread out their turnaround days and have short break packages, so boats start out on three or four different days during the week, rather than just everyone departing on a manic Saturday afternoon for a week’s cruise, as once used to be the case.

Skirting and eschewing the delights of Whitchurch town (the sun was getting seriously past the yard-arm), once back out in the countryside, we moored up rather pleased at our progress, given the circumstances.

We Must Be Mad

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Although we’d vaguely intended to head up the Shropshire Union, we’d kind of decided not to tackle the Llangollen Branch for several reasons. Firstly, we knew it well – off season – from several previous trips. It’s apparently the most popular stretch of canal on the system, and justifiably so. Secondly, it was school holidays, and with more new marinas and hire fleets (over seven at last count) it was doubtless mobbed with boaters, and we’d rather got used to having the cut more-or-less to ourselves. With rumours of 6 hour queues at Grindley Brook staircase locks, surely any cat heading up to Llangollen in August must want their head tested…

And yet… already four locks up at Swanley Bridge Marina, there seemed little traffic passing. The people at the marina said – at least mid-week – it was pretty quiet up as far as Ellesmere if a bit busy beyond. The Captain liked Ellesmere, and so did we. So, questioning our sanity, we decided to go as far as Ellesmere and then take a more considered view.

Back from the Biggles/Luggage/Car/Train shuffle, we set off on Sunday after lunch for a short meander. Mooring up near Wrenbury Church, with a glorious morning to follow it felt good to be going mad.

Birthday Boy

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By doing most of the packing the night before, and going for an early breakfast, we managed to leave Sidmouth by about 09:45 – something of a record. We had to get home, pamper Sir, then rush over to a family 30th Birthday Party for SWMBO’s nephew Ed. Pictures have been requested: here are just a few before we get back to the serious business of Biggles’ adventures in a narrowboat.

Held in the garden, it was a lovely day with warm sunshine and an ever flowing supply of champagne. Can’t be bad.

The Birthday Boy…

The latest addition to the family – Rufus, along with mum Victoria and dad Henry…

The Wall of Shame (lovingly assembled by eldest sister Rebecca…

Auntie Frances, and the band…

Time Off for Good Behaviour

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Having catered to his every whim since Easter, the Captain allowed us some time off at Sidmouth. So after a few days at home catching up with washing, dentists, vets etc. we left Sir in the capable hands of our friends from Windsor, and headed off for the annual gathering of the clans. SWMBO requested some photos, so those with Morris-o-phobia should look away now.

The chief navigator works at Sidmouth Folk Week, so, as requested, some photos from the office.

Here’s Johnny McCusker, Heidi Talbot, Kris Drever and chums sound checking, then doing their thing…

… and here’s someone telling the audience where the oxygen masks, ice creams and toilets are to be found. (Whatever you do, don’t click on that one, it’s too horrific. And “thanks” – if that’s the word – to John Dowell, a former director of the festival, for the picture),

Sunday lunchtime, and it’s a tradition of some 35 years or more that SWMBO frightens the natives on the Esplanade outside the Mocha café.

Earlsdon Morris (followers may remember our previous encounter in Long Scratchington) have a hat decoration contest… here’s the judging in progress, and the winning titfer.

Here’s Earlsdon getting airborne, rather uncomfortably by the looks of it.

Here’s Berkshire Bedlam getting airborne rather more effortlessly.

And we’ve absolutely no idea who the clog dancing cowboy and pantomime horse were. Roy Rogers and Trigger, maybe.

A few weeks ago, the canal/narrowboat blogs and boards were awash with a story about someone stealing a narrowboat from a marina in the Midlands, and making off with a slow-footed getaway. The idea of making your getaway from a major crime at 3mph sounds bizarre to us. Anyway, it was some days before it was noticed that the boat was missing, and sometime later before we realised we knew the owners! The boat was part owned by the musician and one of the aerial dancers in the first Berkshire Bedlam picture. It’s a small world.

Anyway, the boat was soon located, and the only significant damage was that the criminals had painted over the boat name.

Anyway, that’s quite enough music and dance… time to get back to the water.

Homeward Bound

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Retracing our steps towards Hurlestone Junction, the weather was till hot and sunny. It was a busy Sunday when we went down to Chester, and was much quieter mid-week, so we actually managed to get moored up for lunch at The Shady Oak, near Tarporley.

Seemed a much more sensible approach to refreshment than flogging ourselves all the way up to Beeston Castle for an ice cream.

The head cook was rather taken with the cottage for sale immediately opposite, but the Captain’s enthusiasm was muted: it was several feet below the canal water level.

Negotiating the Bunbury staircase locks later that afternoon without any need for shuffling, we gave in to the sunshine not much further on.

Thursday morning saw us passing Barbridge Junction again, before joining the queue for the Llangollen Canal at Hurlestone Junction/Bottom Lock. With a stream of boats coming down, saving us the need to empty anything, we were soon up the four locks, and bedding Song & Dance down in her new home for a few week.

And so Friday saw us sad to be leaving the water, but happily anticipating Sidmouth Folk Week, as we began the complicated process of moving the Captain’s entourage temporarily back to winter quarters while catching up on laundry, appointments and onward travel arrangements. The FO caught a train from Crewe, then drove back in a suitable charabanc to collect the Captain, Cook and luggage. Unfortunately, due to communication difficulties and a minor fiasco regarding logistics, eventually departing the winter quarters for Cheshire at 16:00 on a Friday during the August school holidays proved as bad as feared. Despite the multi-hour delays on the M40 and M6, by hook, crook, sat-nav and going off-piste, Swanley Bridge Marina was finally reached just in time to grab a late dinner at the estimable The Thatch pub nearby.

On Saturday morning the traffic heading back home en famille wasn’t so bad, and by lunchtime, we were back, surveying the mound of laundry, post and things to do.

Biggles Goes Boating

… or a right Song & Dance.

Category Archives: General

A Llangollen Afternoon

Across the Stream in the Sky

Paddling Upstream to Llangollen

Chocolate-less in Chirk

Ferret on a String

Grinding Through Grindley

We Must Be Mad

Birthday Boy

Time Off for Good Behaviour

Homeward Bound