Christine set the alarm for this morning! After last night's investigations and re-planning we found that we could just make the 9:30 service in St Martin's and be back at the boat for the earliest arrival time of Joanna and the two girls.
We walked up the footpath through tree fields. Fortunately there has not been much rain for a few days so there was little mud and we were not too dishevelled when we arrived. We were made to feel welcome - there was a congregation of around 40 people. With one or two local tweaks it was a fairly standard Common Worship communion service. The main variation from anything we have experienced elsewhere was that the sharing of the peace came after the first hymn.
Things took a little longer than we had been promised - we were told that the vicar had to leave by 10:30 to get to his other parish but he seemed to show s ant inclination to achieve that goal! We warned the people who had spoken to us beforehand that we might need to slip away and we did indeed leave in the final verse of the final hymn. Unfortunately this did not give us a chance to talk with other folk or to take some internal pictures. This means that we do not have the evidence for two interesting features. At the back, stored unused, was a three-decker pulpit which must have made the preacher seem mist imposing, right at the top. Also there was a banner for Ifton Colliery. One person we did talk to came to the village from the north east having working in mining but arrived long after the local pit closed.
Having slunk out we made our way back down the same footpath. We reached the meeting point bridge around 10:50 so Christine stayed there whilst Mike brought the boat along, just in case the car came for the earlier time. As it happened, by the time we had moored, Mike had changed and walked up to the top of the bridge, there was the car looking for a place to park!
After a short break Joanna set off with her car to the hotel where she and Jess are staying the night, arranging for us to meet again close to Chirk Station.
The rest of us had about an hour's level cruise through very pleasant countryside and great sunshine. Time now for short sleeves (at least for a day!). Soon after setting off we passed a canalside cottage with this light pipe, an unusual way of adding light into difficult corners of rooms.
Another interesting shape of a tree trunk.
Around another leafy corner and we began to see the railway viaduct that runs alongside Chirk Aqueduct, the first of the famous features for today. Without exploring away from the boat we could not, of course, see much of the structure we were cruising over. Perhaps on the way back?
At the end of the crossing we were welcomed into Wales - the boundary follows the river below. Immediately after that we entered the gloom of Chirk Tunnel. The passage through was made all the more unusual by the noise coming from the boat ahead of us - the pirates we saw earlier in the trip. We s\aw them again a little further on having a picnic in a field and they passed us later in the evening after we had moored.
Just after the tunnel Joanna was ready and waiting - she had tried to send us a text but, of course, being in the tunnel we did not get it! She had managed to track down a local taxi rather quickly.
Joanna was by now re-establishing her boating skills and took us through the shorter Whitehouses Tunnel.
Shortly before the second aqueduct we had to pass through the only lift bridge for today. Jess managed to do some of the turns but there were a lot of them before the boat could pass underneath!
Christine and Jess opted to walk over Pontcysyllte Aqueduct whilst Mike and Alice enjoyed the view from the front of the boat, leaving Joanna in control at the stern. At first glance this does not seem to be very much at all, but there was a quite significant crowd of people just walking to and fro, along the towpath over one side of the iron trough that carries the canal over the deep valley. Originally this was an experience beyond the imagination of most people and it still holds much of that impact even today.
The landscape is now very much surrounded by much higher hills.
Just after the end of the aqueduct is the popular Trevor Junction where there is a busy hire base. We turned left under a bridge onto the final part of the canal. This was initially constructed really as a feeder channel from further up the River Dee and still is the sources of the flow right down to Hurleston Reservoir. As a result it is narrow in many places with limited places to moor.
There is little to spoil the picturesque scenery and progress is slow so plenty of time to take it all in. Joanna and Jess's hotel was a couple of miles before Llangollen terminus. The called briefly at the hotel which is right beside the canal, just to check in. Fortunately, however, we found a stretch where it was possible to moor for the night, just a bridge further on. There was then plenty of time to explore the woodlands before the roast dinner which was, by now, coming along nicely.
8.9 Miles - 0 Locks
No comments:
Post a Comment