Llangollen Canal Kingfisher

 

We pulled ropes through rings at 07.10 from our mooring at Wrenbury with the intention of getting to Grindley Brook locks as early as possible .In the Summer you can sometimes get over 100 boats going through and you may have to wait up to 3 hours. On route we caught our first view of a Llangollen Kingfisher. One day I will get a picture of a Kingfisher in perfect focus.

Grindley Brook locks are 6 locks ,there are 3 normal locks with pounds at the bottom and then a staircase of 3 locks at the top.Luckily we got there early and there was just one boat waiting to go up and 3 to come down the staircase. We ended up taking just under an hour to do the flight.

We carried on for a few more hours before picking up a mooring on the junction of the Prees branch. It’s funny because we stopped here last year and had a bit of Internet coverage ,but this year although our phones showed 3G we didn’t actually have any. We are both on the 3 network and nearly everywhere we go we have good Internet except up here on The Llangollen where there are very few areas with coverage.

The following day after a good night we pulled ropes again at 08.30 with the plan of getting to Ellesmere and picking up a good mooring so that we could do a Tesco shop. With very few boats around we picked up a mooring on the junction. It’s not somewhere I would normally stop because of all the mayhem we have observed at the junction on previous visits here. So Carolyn and Curly headed off to Tesco while me and Hamish stayed aboard to fend off boats.

After re-stocking Inca with essentials and a few luxuries we left Ellesmere and headed towards a mooring we have used several times before. At the top lock at New Marton Curly was well impressed with this bridge as it was the smallest one she had ever seen.

After a long day we picked up this mooring at St Martin’s moor and guess what ? we had a good amount of Internet.. Just the ticket.

With the low cloud as well as the Sun going down Curly managed to take this picture from our mooring. Tomorrow we want to do another early start and get through chirck and over the Pontcysylite Aqueduct before it gets busy and then moor up for the day on a lovely mooring that we have used before which is about a mile outside of Trevor.

                                                                                                        Happy Days