Gunnedah Adventurers: Narrow Boats

Narrow Boats

Friday 13 June (Black Friday)

Today has been far from black. We had breakfast as early as we could so that we could get a car park in Llangollen so that we could go on the canal. Last night I booked a trip on the narrow boat that goes over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and we also wanted to go on a narrow boat that was pulled by a horse.

The main street, you can see a semi trailer trying to get through

Because of the size of the streets in the town, I don't mean length, I mean width, it is hard to get parking. We found a long term car park that is used for the international music about 10 minutes walk outside the town. The international festival started in 1947 as a way of brightening up the country after the Second World War. Deb took part in it with the Linnet Girls Choir in 1974.

The canal we are going on was designed not to carry cargo and commerce but water. Each time a boat goes through a lock it uses over 60,000 gallons (272,000 litres) of water and the Llangollen Canal was designed to deliver this water to the rest of the canal system. Commerce came later as commodities were utilised along the length of the canal which is 6 miles (10 kilometres) long.

The narrow boat wharf is the small white building in the middle back of the picture

One horespower

The boat that is powered by one horse.

The canal has to be close to horizontal so it has been built along the side of hills. The place where we picked up the narrow boats for out trrips actually overlooks Llangollen. It is very interesting as you float along the canal looking up a hill on one side and in some places looking pretty well straight down. The width of the tow path is the only thing between the side of the canal and the drop over the edge.

Passing another narrow boat. You can see the slope of the hillside.

There was a flourishing port at Trevor where there were dry docks and other infrastructure to maintain the canal and also load and unload the narrow boats. At the present time it is undergoing refurbishment by the National Trust.

Narrow Boat dry dock

The trip across the aqueduct was a surreal feeling. We were floating on a boat 126 feet (38 metres) above the River Dee for 1007 feet (307 metres). Hopefully the photographs will give you some idea what the view was like.

A narrow boat going over the aqueduct.

The gunnel of the boat, the lip of the aqueduct and the River Dee below.

There was a bus waiting for us when we completed our crossing of the aqueduct. It took us about two and a half hours to go from Llangollen to the end of the aqueduct and about ten minutes by road. We were dropped off in the middle of Llangollen and we walked back to the car.

The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

We decided that we would go to Wrexham because it is reasonably close to where Deb stayed when she was here in Wales in 1974. On the way we passed the road to the aqueduct so I decided that it might be good way to get som extra photos. I got out and took some pictures and Deb organised our accommodation.

The place where we stayed was very nice. There were sheep and a sheep dog on the front lawn when we got there and I was able to get reasonably close and take some photographs. There were a couple of Morgans there which also took my fancy.