We have plenty of time to get back to our rental marina, so the next few days will be on the leisurely side. We set off just after 9am, which is a late start for us.

Our journey today had 6 locks, all of which we shared with a couple on a very sweet restored 1935 tug boat. They don’t live full time on the boat, but are spending a lot of time now traveling between historic boating events. We chatted with them at each lock, and have some ideas for our next trip! Having a bit of company helps you forget that it’s raining and a little miserable while you’re working the locks.

Almost anywhere along the tow-path side of the canal is open for mooring, with a few exceptions for permitted moorings and areas near locks, lift bridges and water points (spots along the canal with free water stations to fill your fresh water tank). There are also 48 hour mooring sites near towns. The non-towpath side of the canal is privately owned. Houses right along the canal may have a mooring for their own boat, and some farms will develop their canal frontage into permanent private moorings. Some people may live full-time at these moorings, while others may treat it like a second home. Here are some photos of one section where people have made improvements to their mooring site with sheds, patios, and all sorts of “stuff”.

The rain stopped and we continued along the Shropshire Union Canal, back to the Llangollen Canal. We have moored for the night at the junction of those canals – and just in time, because the rain started up as soon as we were tucked up in the boat. None of the rain showers this week have lasted long, and the birds are back to their chirping now.

We were giving the boat a day of rest today, and staying moored at our spot near Chester. John had searched around and found someone who would pick us up, drive us to our selected destination and fetch us for our return later in the day. Rental cars are pretty cheap here, but neither one of us felt brave enough to tackle that challenge. It’s scary enough riding in a car here, and thinking that we’d remember to turn into the right correct lane was too much pressure.

So Peter picked us up in his very nice Mercedes and gave us great tour of the area on our way to Tottan Park. We spent 5 hours wandering the gardens, farm, and house, and having a bit of afternoon tea in the outdoor cafe area.

The main house was originally built in the early 1700’s, and over the next 100 years was replaced by the present neoclassical mansion. In 1795 the estate consisted of 251,000 acres. The last Lord Egerton died in 1958 without any heirs, and left the house to the National Trust. Most of the estate was sold, but 2,000 acres remain in the Trust ownership.

1,000 acres of the deerpark are open to the public, and we saw people walking their dogs through the fields, surrounded by hundreds of sheep and deer. There is a walking path from the center of the nearby town, and it looks like a popular place for folks to walk and ride their bikes.

We easily got our walking quota for the day. Another pleasant ride back to the boat and a bit of nap time before dinner at the Cheshire Cat – which was very good. As they say here “we’re knackered!”. It’s early to bed, and another day on the canal tomorrow as we start to retrace our route.

With a little rain overnight, our morning started overcast and chilly, but not the coldest so far. We were moored just before a lock, so we slid right into that from our mooring spot. This stretch of the canal has been very quiet, and no boats had been through the lock since we moored yesterday afternoon.

These boats do not have a fuel gauge, and the rental companies tell you that you’ll be good for a week. Well, a week is now up and we have no idea how much fuel we have used. About an hour into our trip this morning we pulled into our first canal marina to fuel up. They weren’t open yet, but we figured out where the fuel pump was and pulled into the dock. A few minutes later someone came out to help us, but said we had to back into the slip. John did a flawless job of backing out and spinning the boat around! 70 liters of fuel and a water tank top off and we were off again.

I ducked down below to make the skipper breakfast – the warm boat cabin may have influenced that offer. 😁

About an hour and a half later we arrived at our mooring spot, a bit before the town of Chester. If we had gone any farther, we would have had 5 locks to navigate before another turning spot, and we’ve had our fill of locks (we have 24 to go through on our return trip to the rental marina – making a total of 52 for this trip!).

At our various lock passages yesterday, a few fellow boaters recommended The Cheshire Cat Pub, and that’s where we are moored for the next 2 nights. The pub looks great, and we have dinner reservations for tomorrow.

Another recommendation coming from a volunteer lock-keeper was to have lunch at the Chester Cathedral in their refectory cafe. We always like going to cathedrals and this one did not disappoint. The earliest surviving parts of the cathedral structure date back to 1092 when it was a Benedictine Abbey. The ornate carved woodwork, tiled floors, stained glass windows and beautiful chapels within the cathedral are stunning.

And lunch in the 1092 Cafe was fun and delicious. I’m glad we had that particular lock-keeper on our trip. Otherwise, we probably would have passed by the cafe.

We continued our walk around the city center – some on the streets and also along the city wall which almost completely encircles the city. These walls were begun in the first century when it was a roman fort, and evolved over time until their current configuration in the 12th century.

The last stop on our tour of the city was the Cheshire Military Museum, which tells the story of the Cheshire soldiers from the 17th century to the present.

We had taken a taxi into Chester Center in the morning, and opted for the 55 minute walk back to our boat. I said I’d do it once – and almost regretted that! No problem getting my steps in today!

Some days we don’t have reliable internet on board, so we’re doing a combined post today.

We set off from our mooring spot in Ellesmere at 7:30 on Wednesday. Our morning routine has been to wake up at 7 or 8 and set off as soon as we are dressed. I make the first round of tea while John drives, and we both sip tea on the back deck of the boat as we chug along. After an hour or 2 we’ll pull over and tie up for breakfast on the boat – sometimes bacon, eggs and toast, or maybe just granola and yogurt. And another cup of tea – of course!

This morning was the coldest so far. We both had to duck back into the boat to add an extra layer of clothes. It was overcast and windy for most of the day but we had plenty to keep us busy with 10 locks and a stop at a neat nature tower.

First the nature tower. Mammoth Tower was built to show how deep the peat bog used to be. Now the bog is about at the level of the canal, but 150 years ago it was about 15 feet higher. When the canal and railroad went in, the bog was drained (peat is 90% water), and peat was harvested for commercial purposes. There is an effort underway to restore the peat bogs. And yes, mammoths roamed here.

Moving on down the canal, we hit our first set of locks for the day. These 3 locks are called a staircase, because 1 drops directly into the next, allowing for a large drop in a short distance. Luckily, we had volunteer lock-keepers on hand to orchestrate the proper opening and closing of gates.

After our last lock for the day we found a secluded stretch of canal for our nightly mooring. By that time the wind had pick up and was pushing the boat across the canal. It took a fair bit of John’s strength to pull the boat to the canal side. While we were getting ours under control, a boat coming towards us stopped and had the wind push them into a shallow spot in the canal. Luckily, they were able to do a little back and forth action to get back into the channel. It sounded like they had a more exciting day than us – one of the boaters told us he had fallen into the canal earlier in the day. Oops!

Another quiet evening on board with our nightly game of cribbage. I was able to tie the game score at 3-3!

We woke to a bright, sunny morning on Thursday. The weather isn’t looking good later in the week, so we decided we would have a long day on the canal today. It was still pretty chilly, but the sun felt nice and warm.

We finished out the Llangollen Canal and turned onto the Shropshire Union Canal heading to the town of Chester. The final stretch of the Llangollen contains 9 locks along more picturesque countryside. There were a few more little villages and clusters of houses here, but still many big farm spreads. The building construction is so different here – even the barns are brick!

The locks were close enough together that I walked between them on the tow path. Spending all day on the boat makes it hard to get your steps in, and it was a nice morning to walk. We went through most of these with another boat close behind, so we shared some of the lock work. It’s a nice way to chat with other folks on the canal.

Here we’re going to play a game of “find the boat in the lock”. 😁

The Shropshire Union Canal is a larger canal than the Llangollen, and the locks can accommodate 2 boats at a time. The first set for us was a staircase with 2 locks. There was a boat coming up and we were going down. Luckily, the other folks had been through this lock many times (there was no lock-keeper here), and they showed us how both boats go into their respective locks and pass halfway through. We were in the full upper lock and they were in the empty lower lock. We open the middle gates and the water level evened out. We drove past each other, then we dropped our water level and drove out and they raised theirs and drove out. It was pretty neat!

A few more locks and we made our stop for the night. But look, there’s a castle up on that hill! Beeston Castle, built in the 1200’s is just ruins now, but a very impressive site. We hiked up from the canal, exercising our “right to ramble” (public paths crisscrossing private farmland). The museum gift shop was offering tastes of mead and ginger wine (made exclusively for the English Heritage organization), and we’re now working our way through a bottle of the wine on the boat. We do like ginger!

And a lovely sunset to finish off the night!

What we saw today-

• Baby ducks
• a farmer haying a huge field
• someone doing yard work in his canal-side garden
• More sheep, cows, and horses
• a long line of cows crossing a bridge as we passed under, going to the barn for milking
• the sun
• more boat traffic than previous days
• yellow fields of rapeseed
• wildflowers
• lush green pastures
• lots of baby lambs!
• pretty boats, and boats that look like they shouldn’t be floating
• a giant bee!
• cool trees

Since we were at the end of the Llangollen Canal, we are heading back the way we came, then will continue past our starting spot for week 2. This morning took us back over the 2 aqueducts and through the 2 tunnels. We’re feeling like pro’s now!

We stopped at the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and had a wander down under it. It’s quite the impressive structure! We also walked across on the tow path, so 4 times across for this trip. It’s a long way down to the River Dee!!

We motored on for a bit and moored near the town of Chirk. The first thing I noticed was the smell of chocolate. After a bit of speculation – were they processing cocoa bark mulch? were they actually making chocolate? – google confirmed that there is a Cadbury factory here. this is where the cocoa beans come to be roasted and processed for use in their other factories. It did smell really good!

Since we need to see more of the area than just the canal, we took a 40 minute walk up the hill to Chirk Castle. The castle was built in 1295 and is still completely intact and habitable. The last owners lived there until the 1980’s, and their family had owned the castle for over 400 years. The rooms open for tours still have the original 1700’s furniture that the family purchased when they did a “remodel”. We also got to venture down into the dungeon – but managed to make it out safely.

It’s always good when you return from a wander to find your boat still moored along the canal!

Then back to the boat and a short trip to a mooring spot for the night. Dinner on board, but the dessert menu, “puddings”, at the canal-side pub look really good. I think we’ve earned that tonight.

We decided to stay put for the day today, but did move the boat closer into town in the morning. We also turned around so that we’d be heading in the right direction tomorrow morning. The canals are narrow, and even though we have one of the shorter boats at 48 feet, you can’t just spin around anywhere. There are designated spots along the canal for doing the equivalent of a 3 point turn. I think it would be more than that if we had a 70 foot boat. There are lots of those on the canal – ours is just enough space for us and fairly easy to maneuver.

Once we were situated on a mooring in town, we had our breakfast and waited for the drizzle to stop. This is vacation, so we are allowed to just hang out and relax. 😀

The head of the canal is about 1 1/2 miles from the town wharf. Private boats cannot travel that stretch, but there are tour boats that go down – some horse-drawn. The canal begins at Horseshoe Falls, a manmade dam that diverts water from the River Dee into the Llangollen Canal. 12 million gallons of water per day flow into the canal. A friendly fellow playing fetch with his dog told us to walk up the path to a little church. It was Sunday mid-day, the church was open and there were fresh flowers, so maybe it’s an active church. We wandered through the graveyard and saw stones from the 1700’s up to the 2000’s.

We finished off the day with dinner in town. We did get that table overlooking the river, and the food was delicious!

Our first full day on the canal brought us from Ellesmere, England into Wales. It was a bright, but chilly start to the morning and we set off after after a cup of tea. We motored on for about an hour and found a quiet spot to tie up and make breakfast. Our little kitchen is serving us well.

The countryside here is beautiful! Rolling green hills dotted with farms and cottages. Small villages with lovely old churches. More sheep and cows around every bend. It is very peaceful to meander along the canal. This is definitely the time of year to come for a narrowboat holiday. We have encountered very few boats as we are traveling, making for a relaxing time as skipper. We trade off skippering throughout the day, taking turns maneuvering bridge passings, locks and tea preparations.

This stretch of the canal system only has 2 locks to navigate. We have found that locks not near a busy town center will be self service. We were traveling upstream, so these locks were lifting our boat. The sequence of events to accomplish this are 1) pull over to the towpath and one person hops out 2) If a boat has gone up ahead of you, the lock needs to be drained – with top and bottom gates closed, open bottom paddles and water rushes out. As soon as the lower water level equalizes, the lower gates will open and you drive the boat in 3) close lower paddles and slowly open the top gate paddles 4) water fills the lock and the boat rises 5) when water level equalizes with the top level, the gates will open and you drive out. There’s a lot of cranking and running back and forth for the person on land, but it’s fun. Today we have a succession of 4 boats traveling through these locks, so it worked out that the person waiting for their boat to enter helped the previous boat go through, saving some time and running back and forth.

When the canal needs to cross a valley it uses an aqueduct. These are very impressive structures and feats of engineering – especially considering that they were built over 200 years ago. The first of these that we crossed was the Chirk Aqueduct, 710 feet long and 70 feet above the River Ceiriog (yes, we enter Wales as we cross the aqueduct). There was a similar train crossing running parallel to the aqueduct. The canal then immediately enters the Chirk tunnel, which is just over 1/4 mile in length. The tunnel is only one boat wide, so you need to ensure no boats are coming at you before you enter. Luckily, you can see the end of the tunnel, and boats have good tunnel lights making them clear to see.

The highlight of this section of canal is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. This one is over 1000 feet long and 126 feet above the valley. The entire structure is only 12 feet wide, with a water channel just wide enough for 1 boat and a towpath for pedestrians. At least the pedestrians have a guardrail on their side – no such thing for the boats, just a small lip of steel to keep the water in! It was very fun to cross, although I did have to move over to the towpath side after the first few bumps along the edge. I took a video of the crossing, which I will post later. We’ll cross it again tomorrow and I’ll get some better shots of the whole structure.

We finished up the day making it most of the way to Llangollen, and mooring alongside the towpath. Another tasty meal for the hungry crew, and, even though we were 2 miles from town, we took a walk in to check it out. After all, it’s hard to get your daily steps in when you’re on a boat! The town was bigger and busier than we had expected, but with lots of charm. We found a great pub right on the river and made reservations for dinner the next night, specifically requesting a table overlooking the river.

After a long day+ of travel, we arrived for our first night in Stoke-on-Trent. We really enjoy traveling by train in England. Trains are clean, quiet, comfortable and reliable. From Heathrow, we took a train into London, then another to Stoke-on-Trent. We had some time to kill between those trains, so we took a stroll through Regent’s Park and Queen Mary’s Garden. Wonderful gardens, even this early in the year. It must be spectacular when all of the roses are in bloom!

Making Stoke-on-Trent our first night stop meant just a short train ride in the morning to pick up our boat. Little did we know that Stoke-on-Trent is the home to Spode pottery. The Spode factory closed in 2009, but another local company is still producing the wares. We visited the Spode Museum and picked up a couple of original pieces in the museum store.

Friday morning’s train ride dropped us off in the middle of nowhere at the Prees train station. A test of the UK SIM card was successful in procuring a taxi to take us the last few miles to the marina. We had a nice lunch at the marina cafe while they readied our boat. Boaters are a friendly bunch, and we had a nice chat with Trevor, who lives full-time on his boat. He gave us some good tips on mooring spots and pubs to try.

After a short tour of the boat and a bit of instruction, we were off! It was a cold and rainy start to our trip, but fun nonetheless. We quickly got the feel for steering the boat, and motored on for a few hours until we reached the village of Ellesmere. While we passed few boats on our way, the section of canal at Ellesmere was busy with many boats moored for the night (or even longer).

We found a good spot a short walk from the Tesco supermarket – and the rain had stopped and sun was peeking through the clouds. We stocked up on provisions for the next several days and settled in for the night with a boat cooked dinner. We’ll make most of our meals onboard, and stop a few times at local spots as we travel along.

There are a LOT of sheep in this part of the country. Here are some of our neighbors across the canal. The lambs were having fun and venturing to the edge of the canal to check us out. I hope we see them again in the morning before we set off.