Llangollen Canal – Bridge 11W

Sunday.

After buying a new Aus to UK power plug to replace the one that blew this morning (hair dryer drew about twice as much current as the adaptor was rated for), we headed off for Ellesmere in readiness for checking in to our canal boat. We just happened to see a sign to the village Pontcysyllte. Maybe there is an aqueduct there. We had some good views of the aqueduct from a distance, but not half as impressive as it looks close up. We watched a boat come across the aqueduct and went for a walk along part of it. It’s a long way down. We were keen to get to Ellesmere to look at their wine and food festival, stock up on food & wine for the boat and get on to the boat, so we reluctantly (perhaps that’s Rick) got back in the car. Stopped off at the marina first to make sure that there is a coffee plunger onboard (are we becoming obsessed with coffee?) then went and tasted food, cider & ales. Shopping at Tesco’s took us an hour or so, not knowing where things were and working out some of the menu for the next week as we went. We were pleasantly surprised at the cost of many items, often cheaper than in Aus. We bought bottled water to drink and for coffee – 17p for a litre. Big selection of wines for under £5 and lots of wines from Aus. Brie cheese good value (France is close for transport). Really interesting stuff isn’t it? We’ll supplement the food we bought with some canal side pub lunches/dinners. Canal side pubs usually provide moorings for patrons. Pretty good isn’t it, cruising up to a mooring, stepping off the boat and walking into the pub. I’m sure we’re helping the UK economy.

Anyway, enough of the mundane stuff. We loaded up the fridge, put all our stuff onboard, had our briefing and away we went. Our boat is 4 berth and about 40 feet long (7 feet wide) – big double bed with doona at the pointy end, bathroom, then galley, then table and lounge area at the blunt end. Steering and controls are right at the back, out in the weather which, today, has been beautiful.

Cruised through very picturesque parts of the canal this afternoon, lots of ducks & tiny ducklings who, at stages, were able to move faster than we were, especially under the bridges where the clearance was less then a foot on either side and the water was constricted to about half the width of the canal and flowing against us.

We berthed in a quiet section of the canal, with just a few other boats, for the  night. Opened a bottle of South African sparkling wine and sat out the back listening to the birds with little in the way of other sounds. A very good start.

Set up the web cam on the front of the boat, so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of video we get. Will try to set it going for the 2 locks tomorrow.