Holiday Diary

Dear Diary,

Saturday was a chill out day. So we walked ten miles! The canal from Trefor to Llangollen is reportedly shallow and narrow as it was never intended to be the main route but a navigable feeder for the water from the River Dee. The canal was meant to continue to Chester but it was never completed. Luckily the rain forecasted never materialised until a light shower laster in the afternoon. We walked to llangollen basin where the navigation is then limited to the horse drawn trip boats for a short stretch before becoming to shallow. After sandwiches and a flask of coffee we headed back and called into the Telford Inn. A friend had told us that the landlady was the sister of a chap we had met through having a VW who now lives in Devon. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, just as we were finishing our drinks he walked in! Apparently he hadn't been to visit for nearly a year, what are the chances! So of course, we stopped for another. We managed to drag ourselves away and on the way back to the boat we walked down the path under the aqueduct down to the river. From here you truly appreciate the scale of the structure and if you stand and look at the pillars in a line they are all perfectly aligned - testament to the late 18th century engineering brilliance and workmanship, it was completed in 1805.

Winding its way through the hillside, sometimes in a narrow cutting

The views are certainly spectacular along this section

The canal is quite wide for some of the way

Looking across the valley

The River Dee below, the lifeblood of the Llangollen canal

A particularly narrow cutting, no passing here!

Entering the town there are good visitor moorings and a small basin for turning

Overlooking the town from the canal cut into the hillside above

Stan waiting his turn

The trip boat is horse drawn so has no engine which makes it shallow enough to travel along the further reaches past the town. The tiller can be swapped over so it doesn't have to turn round

Apart from some extensive repairs a few years ago it is all original

Did we really sail over that?!

Perfectly straight columns all lined up

The feet are over five feet tall

126 feet high

It really is a magnificent structure and a real pleasure to have had the opportunity to take our own boat across. Time to start our return journey on this truly beautiful canal, we will definitely be back