Day 22 – we decided to try to leave fairly early to try to avoid the flow of boats in and whilst this worked partially it wasn’t entirely successful. J had to reverse a couple of times despite the fact that those going downstream are supposed to have priority, fortunately we didn’t meet anyone in the narrow bits but by the time D took over they were coming thick and fast the other way. We crossed back across the aqueduct after only a short wait. Today was a real day for smells, not only the wild garlic as before but wood from a saw mill and, where we moored, a strong smell of chocolate from the nearby Cadburys factory. After lunch we went to Chirk Castle; J remembered this being a long walk when we visited last time, so we decided to take the bicycles. Basically it is a slow two mile uphill road to the castle from the cut.

 

Nice sunny day made it a perfect day for a visit, the trip back to the boat was considerably easier – downhill all the way – weeeeeeeeeeeeee. Stayed on the mooring overnight, very dark as in a cutting and no hope of data or tv signal. We had a curious visitor whilst J preparing supper.

Day 23 we ventured onto the Montgomery. Started the day going through Chirk tunnel and then over the aqueduct.

Much busier on the canal today and we actually had to queue for a lock for the first time and quite a few, presumably first time, hirers struggling with the bridges, bends and shallow water on our way to the junction with the Montgomery. Through the locks quite quickly.

Montgomery is really quite shallow, although a boat we have been practically travelling with for the last week who has a deeper draught than us made it to the current end of navigation, as we did. We managed to meet up with friends P and J, these lovely people are looking after our cat whilst we are away. Surprising low numbers of waterfowl on the Montgomery, which made us note that we have also not seen any swans on the Langollen. A lot of interesting plants however and they are building some small lakes to help with transition to an active waterway, whatever they are digging out absolutely stank.

We have had a lot of discussion between us about how spring has really come on over the time we have been  out; the daffodils have gone over and the buttercups are now taking over from the dandelions, bluebells are still really lovely but the milkmaids are beginning to go over. The trees were almost bare when we set off and now nearly everything is in full leaf. I’m no wordsmith so find it difficult to describe the amazing chorus of birdsong most of the day everyday.

Day 24 proved to be a slow day, were passed by a boat at about 0715, we set off about 0800 following a hire boat, we both had to go to the end of the canal to turn around so their crew and I took it in turns to work the lift bridge.

We followed them back to close to the main canal, on the way back all the moorings were empty so we knew there were a lot of boats ahead of us but when we got to the moorings closest to the locks to wait for them to open we found we were number 12 in the queue so we had lunch and moved up about an hour later and there was still one boat waiting at the bottom. We finally got to the top nearly three hours after we first joined the queue. We headed for Ellesmere but progress was slow but at least the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, we ended the day moored pretty much in the same place as we did on the way up but the place was a lot quieter with space in the arm. we did a quick shop which took us past the winding place at the end of the arm. Since we were there before someone had managed to punch a hole in the wall of a building which is near the end; speaking to one of the crews we had come up from the Montgomery with told us it had only happened about an hour before hand, whoever did it must have hit the wall really hard.