Autumn sun, absolute killer.

 25th October

What a lovely start to the day although rain was never very far away. Plenty of rainbows seen but all well into the distance so not a drop fell on us.

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 Anglo Welsh was certainly on the ball because by 8 am a text message was sent that the engineer, Chris, was on his way. Armed with a Henry vacuum, the excess water by the front door was soon sucked up.

 Job done, and both boats pushed away to get through the Wrenbury lift bridge, a mechanised bridge  controlled by a barrier and traffic lights. Christine and the boys took on the operating of it and we made sure to stay close to Merlin 'cos the last thing we wanted was to hold up the traffic 😉😇

 

As usual the Llangollen was busy, but most boats were heading toward us. No waiting at all at Quoisley Lock and a chap in a high viz jacket saw both boats through. It was a CRT bod who had only come to do a lock gate survey but stayed and helped. This lock gate is made of steel and apparently there is a crack with water leaking through.

Quoisley Lock

Kev and Ian at Willeymoor lock

Having heard the horror stories of 5 hour wait at Grindley Brook, boy was we surprised to see no waiting boats.  Three lockkeepers were still on duty, (this is their last week of volunteering) but only at the staircase locks but even so, the whole flight only took 40 minutes for both the boats to ascend.

The low Autumn sun caused me no end of trouble as I turned toward the staircase lock entrance. In fact it was a question of pointing the sharp end and hope I didn't hit the sides. I did, well only nudged it, but enough to throw me off track.

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Good clear photo looking back

Three more lift bridges to do before eventually stopping in the wilds somewhere. Have no idea where we were.. well apart from being on the Llangollen canal of course..and we had no internet, telly or even any decent fishing! Yep apart from a couple of tugs on Kev's lure rod, Josh catching a roach and me with two, This canal is the most difficult one to fish. With its constant flow from the feeder of the River Dee, baiting up where you want to fish is impossible. Anyway we enjoyed the evening as Christine cooked dinner and we spent several hours playing games and enjoying a tipple or two!

Josh's turn to fish.