Monday 23 March 2015 Whittington

Lovely mooring last night, laid in bed listening to an Owl before going to sleep. We woke to bright sun this morning but it didn’t last with the odd flurries of very light drizzle, cool breeze and occasional sunshine, still much better than forecast.

We pushed off at 10 30 am. and it wasn’t long before we passed two pairs of geese, if this pair do breed I wonder what their offspring look like. The other pair were true Canada Geese.

There must have been some good storms this winter around here looking at the damage done to this very large tree, there was another near it completely uprooted.

Then it was into Ellesmere Tunnel, only 87 yards long but quite slow going up stream. We were accompanied through by a party of ramblers. 

At the junction we turned hard right down to the town of Ellesmere to replenish supplies. There is now a Tesco Store located very conveniently at the end of the arm and I suspect like many other boaters we didn’t venture into the town. I do feel that Tesco and the planners have made a good compromise with the design of the store for its location, it could have looked a lot worse. Now we just need the warehouse on the opposite side of the basin restoring. One observation is that I think it was probably the quietest Tesco I have ever been in, so will it last?

After shopping and eating lunch we winded at the end of the arm, I am not sure how easy this would be if there were boats moored right to the very end, retraced our steps to the junction and stopped yet again at the old dry dock/maintenance yard to fill with water, here we had a choice of 4 taps. The maintenance yard is a listed structure and still used by the canal and Rivers Trust, they also ret out the dry dock to boaters for DIY blacking and painting. The large white fenders are in the mouth of the dry dock.

There is a notice at the water point suggesting you catch a bus into Llangollen, maybe CRT don’t want us boaters going up there, we no longer stay overnight as they now charge for mooring.

We had just finished filling with water and pushed off when the working boat Mountbatten came round the corner. She now trades on the Llangollen and should do quite well when the boat yards up here sell diesel at 95+p and they sell it for 72 p/lt.

This must be the most photographed parking meter in the country, I can’t even think where to go to buy one, maybe he worked for the company that was replacing them and got it that way.

We decided not to go down the Montgomery Canal this time, we have been down several times and you have to give CRT at least 48 hrs notice to go down. as they only allow 12 boats a day. We carried straight on past the Maestermyn hire base to moor for the night with only sheep and lambs for company just before bridge 7W, another SUCS 48 hr mooring.

As you are able to read this blog tonight I must say that the 3 mobile internet coverage has improved since last time we were this way.

Today’s Journey 7¾ Miles, 2 Junctions, 1 arm in 3½ hours.