The Llangollen Canel

Off to meet the In-Laws at the end of the Llangollen Canal and have had to do three to four hours of motoring a day to get there. So far we’ve only travelled on the Shroppie (Shropshire Union Canal) with minimal water flow so we’ve been caught out a bit with the flow of the Llangollen canal. So it’s been twelve to fourteen thousand revs per minute on the engine as opposed to our normal ten and we still only cover half the distance we normally would in the time. So much for our quite days!

Came across our first set of ‘Lift Bridges’ that you have to do as it says on the tin, lift them.
 

The bridges are counter balanced so I thought they should be easier enough to lift so had a go.

And heaved

And pushed
 

But wasn’t quite tall enough to get it up enough. ‘What’s this’ came a little voice to my ear.

 

And started to wind up the bridge.
 

Okay, only joking, knew how to use it really, but thought it would be an amusing story. Have to apologise about the acting though, so won’t give up our day jobs just yet, oops almost forgot, don’t have day jobs anymore . . . .

Keeping with my newly started tradition of bird watching, here’s a Heron just taking off, although hopefully I'll get him taking off towards me next time.

 

The Boys have been a little dubious about the boat, especially the older one, but he’s found his safety spot for when the boat is going and yes, he does fall asleep sitting up. So long as the younger one can have a sleep though, he’s fairly happy anywhere and even better if it’s in Nicky’s seat.

 

Anyway, back to the Llangollen.

Bit disappointed with the first stretch down to Whitchurch, but the scenery has slowly got better the closer we get to Wales. Although it’s been half term week, it hasn’t been very busy on the water, but we dread to think what it would be like in the height of the season when the canal is full of boats, many of which would no doubt be on a mission to cover as much of it as they can in the available time. But whilst it has been quiet, we’ve still seen a few bumps and close calls and can only imagine. It would probably be the sort of place though to moor up somewhere safely out of the way and enjoy the water rage that I’m sure happens. Here’s a few scenery photo’s for you to be going on with this week.

 

As you can see, the weather has been good to us for November. . . . .

Highlight of the week so far (!) the In-Laws arriving and going to take two weeks to do what we’ve done in a week in heading back to Audlem and hopefully with the flow of the water in our favour this time, it’ll be easier going.

Had a mixture in problems uploading photo's and not finding the time to sort it so a little behind with this blog so the next one will need to fast forward a few weeks.

And so in signing off,

 

Day 44 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat -  157 miles and 61 locks further on from when we started.