Back from Barcelona and heading south!

We're now on the Shropshire Union Canal heading south to meet Barry's daughter Jamie somewhere around Worcester; though we may've been a little ambitious to think we could get that far in the next 5 days! Between where we're moored tonight and Wolverhampton there are 27 locks! OMG! It’s only 38 miles away, so would take less than an hour by car, but is actually likely to take us over 3 full days cruising by narrowboat at 3-4 miles an hour. Then it'll be another few days to get to Worcester. With a bit of luck we will also catch up with my daughter Kim and her partner Joe for the weekend (though we’re not really sure how it’s going to happen yet!), as well as my mum and dad for lunch on Sunday. So not a lot of time to rest, relax and take it easy so far - ah well, a life on the ocean waves...

Barcelona was amazing, what a vast city it is. We did an open top bus tour over 2 days; the first day was the east tour – almost 3 hours long, then the west tour – almost 2 hours long! It only takes about half an hour to drive around Gisborne (where Barry and I live in NZ), so kiwi friends will just have to imagine the hugeness of this city. The second day my friend Sarah and I walked down the La Rambla, then the seafront and got back on the bus and did a bit of Gaudi – what an amazing artist he was. We really just touched the surface of Barcelona, one day I hope to return and do some more exploring. The hen night was awesome, apart from the poor hen (bless you Kerry) having her camera and phone picked from her pocket (well handbag!) – damn those thieves! But she didn’t let it spoil her fun, and the angels and devils had lots of fun, frivolity and forfeits – mine was to do a conga which I duly did and led about a dozen Spanish men and women (at least I think there were women behind me too) around the square we were drinking in – it may even be on you-tube by now someone suggested! It was just so good to feel the warm sun once again…

At one of Gaudi's 'parks', and a small section of Barcelona in the distance

One of the 3 entrances to the Sagrada Familia - the amazing building 'may' be completed in 20 years time!!

Yes of course I was a little angel all night...

Eating paella on the first night in the square

Anyway, back to the narrowboat and the lovely Barry who had an equally fun weekend with Kath and Tim but without the dressing up, or at least if they did I haven’t seen the photos!

Tim and Kath on the Monday. Looking bright and refreshed after a weekend on the boat???

More shots of the Ponteysyllte Viaduct. 128 ft high

That's 'Northern Pride on top...

Started building in 1795. Finished 1805. 204years old and still just as strong.

Tim & Kath negotiating the viaduct

It’s blooming freezing here, windy and rainy; though we did have a touch of sunshine today and it may even have got into double figures though possibly only 12 degrees, brrrr…

Cole Mere. A mere is a lake with no water flowing in or out (a pond then??).

I’ve been getting quite brave and have managed a little driving into locks, and yes sometimes I literally did drive INTO the lock! But I’m improving, albeit very slowly! Barry doing the locks is another scary thing, he skips across the lock bridge thingy over the huge drop and reckons by the end of the trip I shall be doing it to - I don’t think so! I have to close my eyes and not watch him, just one false move and he’d be falling into the abyss…

The back wall of a lock, holding back the canal.

We are parked up tonight by a ‘secret nuclear bunker’ built for at the beginning of the second world war for the Ministry of Defence I think, so if the bomb goes tonight we’ll be OK so long as we get sufficient warning!

A full few days travelling to come, don’t think we are messing about on the river here, we’re working hard you know!!!!!

Back to LLangollen and the Internet

Wednesday 29 April
We had a lovely evening in Llangollen last night, and our second trip to the Wynnstay Arms - lovely friendly Landlord and Landlady. There were 6 of us in the bar, one from Ireland, one from Wales, one from Liverpool (he sounded like a scouser!), one from South Africa, one from NZ and one from Birmingham (well Sutton Coldfield actually!). We sat and put the world to right over a pint or two; good harmless fun. One of the subjects we discussed was the outbreak of Swine Flu – and the fact that Barry and I were on the same Air New Zealand flight as the students and teachers from Rangitoto College in Auckland, who were at that stage on their way to Mexico via LA, and some now apparently have the illness. Bless them, they were so sweet we had 2 students and a teacher sit next to us at different times during the flight - they kept changing places. So we are hoping that they are all OK.

Llangollen at night is like a little model fairy village, very pretty.
Yesterday I witnessed a gang rape – it was awful! This poor female duck was being chased and then held down by about 7 male ducks while they each had their wicked way with her, I was traumatised by the sight, nature is indeed cruel at times – you would have hated it Lisa L. Today we fed the ducklings which were just hilarious, it wasn’t possible to count them but I think there were about 33 (no wonder there are so many ducklings, now I understand!). They were all falling over each other to get a crumb of bread! And it was great that the adult ducks all kept out of the way while their chicks got fed, so maybe the duck world isn’t so bad?!
We moored at Chirk overnight, 5 minutes walk from the railway station ready to go down to Birmingham Thursday.

Sandra's been polishing the brass vents etc, and planting pansies for the boat. (touch of castles & roses sneeking in!!)

Thursday 30 April
Guess what? It’s raining persistently once again! I’m off to sunny Spain…

Barry;

Caught bus from Chirk to Llangollen to buy the water pump for the shower that I should have bought when we were there, but was too tight to pay for. Missed the last bus backto Chirk so friendly bus driver took me to Cefn-Mawr and managed to get a bus from there. Motored down to Hindford to 'Jack Mytton' pub arriving about 9.15pm. In time to have enjoyable night with publican, locals and other boaters. Sampled a few of wares (which is only polite).

Friday 1st May

Barry;

Still at pub mooring. Fitted pump, fixed bedroom light and other maintanence, went to pub for lunch and a beer, more maintanence, back to pub for dinner and few more beers.

Saturday 2nd May

Barry;

Kath, Sandra's sister and Tim a friend arrived for weekend, so got away about 11.30am heading back to Llangollen (might apply for residency there). Got all the way arriving at 8.00pm, Tim had made a curry for dinner, so after was a walk into town and stangely, a tour of a few of the local pubs.

Kath and the Tim who drove the boat the whole way

Making it look easy

Chirk Marina complete with a New Zealand flag

Once more over the Aquaduct. (Lovely sunny day)

A bit of a grey day all round…

Arriving through the trees at Llangollen

The river Dee in Llangollen

One of the back streets. Castle ruin on hill behind.

Horseshoe Falls on a very grey day!

Cute cottage along the towpath walk to Horseshoe Falls

Our mooring at Llangollen Marina

Not much exploring achieved today as the rain was fairly persistent! I managed to get a 4 mile walk to the Horseshoe Falls and back, sunny on the way there but very wet on the return journey. Hurrah for good waterproofs and my pashmina and gloves!

Barry has spent the day trying to work out why our water supply has turned brown and why the boat appears to be tilting; it could be 6 months on a leaky boat after all (Split Ends song for those who haven't heard of it!)! But he rang the lovely man at Barbridge Marina who reassured him we weren’t about to sink. I think it’s all sorted now, it’s beyond my womanly brain to figure out what on earth it all means which is why I went for a long walk! Bless Barry he had my night terrors last night and heard noises that he thought were the boat sinking and thought ‘Sandra will never get back on if anything happens…’ so got up to investigate and found that the noise was heaps of ducklings nibbling away at the boat’s bottom bless them!

I’ve looked up my train times from Chirk to Sutton Coldfield for Thursday and all seems good, I’ll stay a night with my sister Katherine and catch up with the lovely Arlene, before heading to Kerry’s for the Hen Weekend in Barcelona, not that I’m really looking forward to 3 nights in a hotel with maybe some sunshine and warmth very much!! Lol! Poor Barry, I hope Tim does manage to come and say a couple of nights or he will be all alone for 5 days…

We'll leave Llangollen in the morning, shame we didn’t get to see more of it in the sunshine. Of course we also leave the internet coverage so no more blogs for a few days I think. The next ones will be from Barry, writing and photography, not sure if he will cope with the stress of it! Anyway, I suspect it will be brief. I may even get to log on from sunny Spain and check out what's been happening in my absence !

Llangollen, end of the line

We’re back on line after a few days of no internet coverage, Barry has been getting withdrawal symptoms! So what have we been up to…

Well thank goodness for UG boots I say! They’ve keeping my feet so warm and cosy, I’m so thankful I made the choice to buy them when I was in Shrewsbury! I believe the temperature is similar in NZ autumn as in UK spring at the moment, so we’re not missing anything, and at least the nights are getting lighter here and with a bit of luck we have warmer weather to come! But I’m not counting on it…

Barry at the helm

Saturday morning it poured with rain, and unfortunately that was the day we had to go to a Marina and get some diesel and a pump out (revolting I know, but a fact of life on the boat when the red light comes on above the toilet to say you’re full; we have yet to work out whether it’s like the petrol light on a car and means we have another 20kms or more to go or not!!!). We got told off (again! It’s becoming a habit, the English are very bossy aren’t they, I’d forgotten?!) by the man in the Marina for not reading the signs saying ‘don’t enter until given permission to do so’ – not just one but FOUR signs! The English have so many signs - don’t do this, don’t do that - when we were here 4 years ago we started taking photos of all the signs but soon got bored! Anyway, first pump out successfully achieved, the ‘nice’ man did let us stay in the Marina waiting until they were ready rather than sending us back to moor up on the towpath outside, but he said it was only because we had our New Zealand flag flying, thanks again Deb!

On the trip to Ellesmere

Barry has appreciated his Gortex jacket cruising along in the wind and rain, and has been heard saying quietly a couple of times ‘this isn’t what I ordered!’ A couple of men waiting in their car while I wound up and down a lift bridge (they found it highly amusing to sit and watch me working so hard the buggers!) shouted to Barry ‘thanks for bringing the weather with you’, so this is actually fantastic weather apparantly!

Ellesmere basin, where we moored for the night

Eight dentists on a stag trip. They'd stopped for a cup of tea prior to this. ????

We had a lovely evening in Ellesmere, and found a couple of pubs with very friendly people in. We even got a game of darts at The White Hart, great little pub, and I beat Barry much to the amusement of the barman! The next pub (can’t recall the name of it, a hotel ) there was a pool semi-final going on, all VERY serious stuff.

The White Hart pub on the right

May look impressive but didn't win the game

We moored in Chirk Saturday evening and went for a stroll then steak and chips at the local pub, The Poachers Pocket - I thought I'd treat myself to a hot shower and straighten my hair for our big night out, while Barry was cruising along (while the inverter was working), but horror of horrors (ladies will understand this part!), my straightener didn't adapt well to UK voltage and broke having not even straightened my fringe - no straight hair for me for a while then!!! Ah well, the realities of narrowboat living I suppose!

Sunday we had a ‘short’ walk (advertised as such from the towpath) to Chirk Castle which turned into a bit of a hike – short walk indeed! We decided to just stay for coffee (well OK Barry had a cider and I had a coffee!) and a few picturesque pictures and then hike back a possibly shorted way through the castle grounds to meet the lovely Lisa for a Sunday Roast at ‘The Poachers Pocket’, what an excellent pub that is. We've been to a number where the service has been atrocious, and one wonders why they are running a pub when they can't even smile at their customers - all the staff at The Poacher's were curteous and friendly and the food was good too.

Sandra and the castle. Pretty impressive

Yesterday we travelled over the 2 Aquaducts built by Thomas Telford – Chirk and Pontcysllte (how on earth do you say that?!) – what amazing structures! The Chirk one was awesome with a drop of 21.3 meters, views of meadows and sheep that were beautiful in the soft evening sunlight, and has a viaduct running alongside built after the aquaduct (1801 aquaduct & 1841 viaduct!) to show the supposed ‘supremacy’ of the railways.

Chirk aquaduct and railway bridge

View from the top

But this pales into insignificance when you meander across the Pontcysllte one at 38 meters above the River Dee, opened in 1805. The views from this one were spectacular, and the one side there was no barrier at all. So when you are steering the narrowboat you are actually right on the edge. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would until I was trying to go to sleep last night and I suddenly couldn’t stop myself thinking what could have happened, those night-time terrors…

Views from the top

The railway bridge from the top of the aquaduct

We moored up at a place called Trevor Sunday night, and got almost told off again as we moored ‘illegally’ on private moorings that weren’t signposted at all! But it was OK, the one person who was living there said he didn’t mind and so long as we were out of there by 10 in the morning no-one would be any the wiser.

Trevor at the end of the viaduct

Sandra and Trevor (in the background)

Today we’ve cruised to Llangollen in North Wales, following a challenging piece of the canal where there is single lane ‘traffic’ in a couple of parts, and very shallow bits in others. A very pretty run nonetheless, though I wouldn’t be so keen to cruise along in high season; it must take hours to travel the 4 miles from Trevor! It’s rained almost constantly today and I think the forecast is the same tomorrow if not worse. Temperature is now down to less than 10 degrees, and will be around 2 degrees tonight, so we have the central heating on in the boat – quite a luxury coming from NZ where we have just the log burner to rely upon! Llangollen looks like a lovely little place, though I’m sure like anywhere it would look a lot lovelier if the sun was shining instead of the clouds falling down! And we have actually found a local launderette and done a service wash (10 pounds!) - yippee, clean towels, sheets and other things!!!

Some of the 29 ducklings attacking the weed on our boat (no shortage there). They all appear to be with the one mother.

We'll be doing some more exploring of Llangollen tomorrow in the rain…

Whitchurch & beyond the internet

Don't think this building would pass the earthquake inspection in Gisborne

Sandra on the internet last night, the only place with coverage at the front of the boat

After a dismal start, today looks like being quite pleasant with the sun poking his head through the clouds every now and again. I walked into Whitchurch this morning in t-shirt, sweatshirt, pashmina, waterproof jacket and gloves and returned in just my t-shirt (the other things being put in my bag not tossed out along the way!). Recent purchases include an electric toaster to save gas (an expensive commodity we have discovered!) and a couple of clothes ariers for the hand washing. Life on the narrowboat is very much back to basics!

We're now setting off from Whitchurch and are unlikely to have any internet coverage for a few days.

I'll attempt to get some photo's of Barry over the next few days as he says his mum is going to be thinking I have done away with him and traded him in for a younger model!!! As if; I wouldn't swop him for the world bless him.

My lovely daughter Lisa should be joining us sometime this weekend which will be fabulous, it's so good to be close to her.

Away we go into Wales, for the next set of adventures including 2 beautiful but apparantly very scary aquaducts...

On our way at last!

Hurrah! We are away at last on our journeys and my cold is improving – man cold indeed! For someone who is rarely unwell and hasn’t had a day off work sick in years, being struck down with painful ears, throat and blocked nose and sinus is not pleasant and yes I have been feeling very sorry for myself!

We don’t have much internet coverage at the moment, out in the sticks of Cheshire on our way into Wales so our blogs may be a little sporadic.

We left Barbridge Marina yesterday; the boat safety man couldn’t get to us until Sunday so we are going to meet with him on the way to Llangollen somewhere. Luckily the boat is already covered until July so it’s not a problem.

A number of locks later and I’m starting to get the hang of them, I got a bit of a ticking off from a British Waterways lock-man after the first few, as I left the last lock gate open because we thought we saw another boat was on its way!

The original plan of Barry doing the locks hasn’t worked out, as that would mean I’d have to steer the boat into the locks and as the first ones were only just wide enough for the boat I decided the locks may be the simpler option! Also I get more exercise this way, so I’m hoping I shall soon be a sliver of the woman I was, lol.

We lost a fender (the things that stop the boat from bouncing on the side of the canals when you moor up) in one of the locks even though we thought we’d put them all out of the way (only just bought them!) and Barry managed to get one of the central mooring ropes chopped off as he skipped off the boat at one stage to get an amazing photo of a bleak landscape and forgot to tie the rope back up after her returned to the boat! He also foolishly wore his jandals while driving initially, and almost lost one when it fell off into the lock - typical man, I’d told him the ‘towpath tips’ book said not to wear jandals (well they said flip flops actually in English speak!) but would he listen…

Talking of skipping off, that’s what he keeps doing on the locks too; he is giving me heart failure! Before the lock has filled up he’s jumping up on the roof of the boat and onto the side to give me a hand, he just can’t help himself!

Last night we moored at a place called Wenbury along the Llangollen canal. Barry went for a sunset walk and got chatting to other boat owners and took some lovely bridge and pub photos. No drinking in the pubs though, I was feeling pretty yuck still so stayed on the boat in the ‘warm’.

Talking of warmth, the weather is sporadically sunny, but mostly overcast and about 16 degrees, typically English really. Barry almost put his shorts on this morning, but soon came to his senses again! We got quite excited earlier by the weather forecast over the next few days being between 21 and 30 degrees until we found we’d put in Shrewsbury in America rather than Shropshire where it is going to be between 13 and 18! Ah well, you can’t have it all.

It’s been our first full day cruising today and we are now moored up at Whitchurch. It’s St George’s Day today so we were hoping for a decent English pub to have a few beers in tonight, but unfortunately the moorings are a 15 minute walk away from the town, so it’ll be beers on the boat and a couple of glasses of wine for me. I can’t recall ever celebrating St George’s Day previously so it’s fine by me. Tomorrow we’ll be heading for Ellesmere.

Overall we are just loving cruising along, making the dream a reality, no rush to be anywhere or do anything, bliss…