AQUEDUCT ........ Freakyy

On the move by 10am to cover the last 10 miles to the Aqueduct at Pontcysyllte with the sun out but a cool wind in the open spaces. Not so much on coming traffic as a lot of the hire boats are back at base which was good as there's some tight blind approach under a  bridge corners to negotiate. The farmland  and bush scenery in Wales is green and lush, easy on the eye. The nearer we got to Aqueduct the more foot traffic on the tow path and finally it was our turn with a NB about three quarters of the way across ahead. The steel trough is lower than the deck on the boat and  I must say the first 30 metre's with no side protection  visible on the drop side was pretty Freaky. The 1007ft length at idle speed is a nice trip and basically the boat steer's itself. One part I jumped off, on the tow path side of course, to lift a side fender and Leonie was Not Happy....

The River Dee  126ft below....

The man doing some fenceing and his quad bike don't look to big from up here...

Looking back, there's about 5ft of water in the trough....

To get there you go through two tunnels,  Chirk  459yrds.....

And the Whitehouse tunnel  191yds.....Not much room on the side.  This canal has a continuos flow of water  from  Horseshoe Falls weir above Llangollen running down it which causes quite a current in the narrow tunnels and makes steering tricky. The water flow ends at Hurleston Junction reservoir, about 55 miles then is treated and used for domestic use in the city of Crewe.

Crossing the Chirk Aqueduct, 70 ft to the river,  with the rail aqueduct beside.....

Went for a walk, about 9pm, not dark till 10pm, that hand rail is on the Far side...

Walked back across aqueduct, Let the Rail GO........

 Then walked down to almost river level.....

On the boat Leonie say's politely, " have you passed wind", no it's the wild Garlic growing amongst the tree's, strong smell....

A few 'Big Horn' sheep....

Old stone canal side house....



And after a 'Big Day' what better than a Pork roast with sea salt rubbed crackle, Good cook that Leonie.......