Hello All
We've just finished our first trip on a narrowboat and as we've been happy to read along on these pages we'd like to contribute with a short report on our trip.
At the bottom of this report we've put a link to a subpage to our homepage where we've put some of our photos from the trip.
We hired the narrowboat "Willowvale" from Dartline Cruisers in Bunbury and were to pick it up on friday, July 4th. We'd been camping in the Mendips a few days before going sailing and when we left Rodney Stoke Inn Campsite we were a bit delayed as the tent had to dry up before we could pack it away in the car for a week.
We then got caught up in roadworks on M5 south of Bristol and due to these delays we ran into the friday rushhour in Birmingham. We then took an A-road through Wolwerhampton to save time, but ended up going SOUTH!
Finally we reached Bunbury, 10 mins. after closing time and had to spend the first night at the boatyard.
When we got sailing we took the Shropshire Union Canal to Hurleston Junction and then up the Llangollen canal. Having passed the first locks we morred near bridge 3 and had lunch. When we were sitting there we heard a funny knocking noise and soon saw a swanfamily begging for food. They were quite professional in their approach as we didn't react promptly, sp they started tapping the windows until we had fed them.
We then sailed through most of the locks on the canal,stopping just before Grindley Brooks. Our children Anne Kirstine (aged 9) and Jens Christian (aged 12) had done all the locks so we had a quiet night!
The next day we pressed on, wanting to reach the top fast and then take it leasurely down the canal, but moored for the night between Bridge 15 and 16 just before Chirk.
On the third day we did both the aquaducts and the tunnels. It was quite spectacular at Chirk, but after that Pontcysyllte was a bit disappointing. The aquaduct itself was impressing but the view coundn't match the view from Chirk aquaduct through the railwaybridge. It was as if looking on marvellous paintings through the arhces, a sight none of us will forget.
We finally reached Llangollen, took a ride on the steamrailway and a short look at Llangollen itself. Anne Kirstine bought herself a family of sheep for her collection of teddies from holidays.
Late in the afternoon we left Llangollen and had a very pleasant and much calmer tour downstream. The boat we'd hired had turned out quite noisy - the engine was much more noisy than we'd expected and all the windows were clattering until Hanne stuffed the edges with kitchenpaper.
As there had been no locks for a long time the children ran alongside the boat for a while and then took off, urging another to run faster and longer than we liked. For a while they were gone and as they might just have hid themselves under a bridge we had to stop and look for them. Hanne walked back to te last bridge and I sailed on. I then met an oncoming nb and asked if they had seen two childres running along the canal, wearing yellow boyancyjackets - they had approx. 20 mins ago. I then had to moor alone to get Hanne back on the boat again. Getting the front end tied up went quite well, but doing this the stern drifted outwards and ran the boat aground on the other side of the canal so I had quite some trouble getting it back and tied up - finally I succeded and got Hanne back on the boat and sailed on. A couple of miles further down we found the children, they had started back towards us as we didn't show up. We moored for the night just before bridge 27.
Next morning we wanted to visit Chirk Castle and went up there just to see that it was closed this day. Just a sign at the entrance no explanation and not ordinary closing day, this was sad as the children had looked much forward to this! We then sailed on towards Frankton Junction hoping to try out Montgomery Canal. Again we were disappointed. For some reason British Waterways don't want tourists down this canal! Anyone going down there had to book 24 hrs. before - at that time we didn't know that we had time to try this canal. None of us understands the idea of spending that much money on restoring a canal and then shutting out everyone that takes a leisurely holiday rather than the daily well planned working routines :-(
At the end of the day we moored at Ellesmere and spent the next morning there seeing the life of a town slowly dying, leaving just the tourists there. We visited the butcher and enjoyed seeing the differences to a Danish butchershop and the like of the bucher himself to a Danish one!
Coming back to the part of the canal with liftbrides and locks cheered up the children, Jens Christian tried steering the boat into and out of some of the locks and enjoyed doing many of the locks between (after) Grindley Brooks and Hurleston Junction. We did Grindley Brooks on wednesday, moored just after bridge 25 and went down the rest on thursday. Reaching Hurleston early thursday afternoon we decided to go to Nantwich for dinner and to cross a proper aquaduct (according to Anne Kirstine it had to cross a road NOT just some river). We then sailed to Barbridge (where we fed more swans - using the remains of our cornflakes) and in the morning we turned the boat back to the hirer at Bunbury.
We had had a nice week in spite of the disappointing views of Chirk Castle and Montgomery canal and the noisy boat and will probably try it again, but next time we'll bring some friends as well and hire a better and larger boat.
We took some photos on the trip, some of these are displayed on our homepage and on three subpages. If you turn off the automatic loading of images it will work faster (as you probably know) and you'll be able to see the texts before loading the pictures you find interesting. I've put the pictures on three pages to keep loading time down.
the subpages:
Shropshire and lower Llangollen canal
We hope you'll enjoy the pages.
Hanne & Arne Munkgaard