The start of May (2007) seemed like a good time to go on holiday, so four of us booked a week's holiday on a boat from Black Prince Narrowboat Holidays. We picked up the boat from Chirk Marina, and got a good showing around the boat, and instruction on how to drive it.

I'd prepared a rough itinerary in advance, with an idea of how far we wanted to go down the canal. At least with a canal there's no worrying about the route! The other problem is that having never been on a boat before, it's difficult to know how fast you can go. Thankfully the Canal Planner website comes to the rescue! It's hard to believe that a website this useful can be non-commercial.

Day 1 

We had the boat manoevred out of Chirk Marina for us, which we were gratful for, as it's not the sort of thing you want to do for your first time on a boat. We then headed down the Llangollen Canal towards Hurleston Junction. The first obstacle was Chirk Tunnel. There was a queue for this, so we had held the boat on the centre-line, hoping that we'd only be stopped for a minute or two. We waited maybe 10 minutes for traffic to come up through the tunnel, then we set off behind three or four others. As we passed over Chirk Aqueduct, the sun came out, and everyone felt good!

Passing Chirk Bank, the canal gets more twisty, and as I took over the steering, I discovered two things:

1. Don't get stuck on the outside of a turn - you can't steer the front of the boat, and once it's on the outside of a turn you've either got to push it back in physically, or go backwards!
2. Don't go too close the edge in the shallow bits - the boat doesn't like getting stuck in the mud!

Both of those were discovered the hard way.

We carried on cruising along, followed by all the other people who'd left Chirk Marina. As we approached St. Martin's we saw a Crested Grebe, with her chicks. I've never seen one of those before. We carried on to the visitor moorings at New Marton, where we moored up. This spot was chosen as it was just above the first set of locks, so we wandered down to have a look at what we were facing the next morning. As we stood there, a couple of boats came through the locks, including one chap who was working the lock on his own. He made it look very easy.

As we were moored, another boat moored next to us, and the owners told us that boaters were very sociable and everyone was used to mooring in close proximity. Then then proved this by having an argument, which ending with him eating his dinner on the back of the boat.

Day 2

The first night's sleep hadn't been great - the beds on a canal boat are small, and they are on a boat which bobs around a bit when other boats go past We got the boat into the New Marton top lock, and there were plenty of other boaters around to give us a hand.  We'd been warned about the the wash from the by-weir, so it didn't catch us by surprise. As we cruised along, we phoned British Waterways and booked our passage through Frankton Locks to enter the Montgomery Canal. New Marton bottom lock went smoothly, and we realised that working the locks wasn't so hard. We moored up above the Frankton locks for a late breakfast, then made our way through with the assistance of Colin the lockkeeper. The staircase lock was much deeper than the locks at New Marton, and as you descend and the lock walls funnel your vision, the countryside ahead of you beckons. With the short pound between the locks, you can see why a lockkeeper is needed, as the water level varies noticably with each lockful released into or drained from the pound. Once through the locks we started making our way towards Queens Head, where we had an enjoyable late lunch. As you get further down the canal the landscape get more rural. Between the Aston Locks there are parts where the canal has plenty of reeds, which leaves little room to manoevre if a boat comes the other way. The number of herons we saw at the side of the canal was higher than I would have expected. However they're shy birds and as the boat approached they invariably flew off, so we didn't get a close look at any of them. Passing under Maesbury Marsh bridge (79) reminded me that the guidebook had warned of it being a low bridge, and passing underneath involved ducking! We hadn't planned where we would stop, so we simply decided to carry on for as long as we had daylight. At Crofts Mill Lift Bridge (81) my girlfriend went ahead to open the bridge, which turned out to take a lot of effort! As the end of the navigable section was only another 50 metres or so, she remained at the bridge while I winded the boat at Gronwen Wharf. A couple of swans were in the canal at this point, and one took objection at me, and decided he was going to have a nip at my feet! As I was in the middle of turning the boat, I couldn't really go anywhere! Back up to the lift bridge, where my girlfriend climbed on board again, then back up the canal. As it was early evening we didn't stop at the Post Office at Maesbury Marsh. We have since visited many times though! At the services block at Maesbury Marsh we filled up with water, as we had no idea how long a tankful would last. We decided to moor up near Red Bridge (77), where there was barely a house in sight. A couple of other boats joined us, in the beautiful, quiet countryside.

Day 3

We could afford to take our time in the morning, as we didn't have to be at Frankton Locks until midday. We ambled our way up the canal, stopping at the service block at the end of the now-infilled Weston Arm, and arrived at Frankton Locks with plenty of time to spare. When Colin arrived, I wandered up to see in what order he wanted to put the boats through. He was confident that we'd be through fairly promptly. Unfortunately this plan was scuppered by a boat coming down the locks have its engine fail. As we couldn't get through the locks until they had come through, I offered a hand, and ended up pulling the boat through all four locks. I found out that pulling a narrowboat is incredibly hard work!

As soon as we had got through the locks, it started to rain, so I did the honourable thing and left the steering of the boat to someone else, while I went inside the boat and had a nice warm shower. By the time we reached Ellesmere the rain had subsided, and we turned up the Town Arm. It was busy, and there was little space to moor, but luckily we found a space, moments before someone else came and tried to claim it. We met some guests who had come to visit, and headed in to town for a meal. This was when we found that not many places were open as it was a bank holiday. Luckily the Red Lion was, and the food was pretty good, and reasonably priced.

Upon returning to the boat, we headed down to the wharf at the end of Ellesmere Arm. Unfortunately a stiff breeze had sprung up, and as I tried to turn the boat, it was being blown back against the end of the arm. In the end we resorted to getting one of our guests to pull the end of the boat round.

We carried on down the canal in the direction of Hurleston, and the canal wended its way through open countryside. I had aimed to reach Bettisfield by the end of the day, but our lunch break had taken longer than I had planned. Luckily it was a beautiful evening, so we were able to carry on cruising until darkness was beginning to fall, just as we were reaching Bettisfield. There were so many boats moored here that as we crawled past them it took about 10 minutes to get to a place to moor.

The guidebook had said that Bettisfield once had amenities, but they were now gone. A short walk back to the village proved the guidebook right!

Day 4

We left Bettisfield fairly early, as we planned to reach Wrenbury by the evening. Shortly after passing the junction for the Prees branch, we stopped at the farm shop, where the owner's selling technique was to offer you everything. "Do you want bread? Do you want eggs? Do you want cheese? Do you want milk? Do you want carrots?" In addition to the eggs, milk and bread we had planned to buy, we also left with a cake.

Shortly after this we came across the first of several lift bridges. These proved annoying, as they take a minute or two to wind up or down, involve a fair amount of effort, and the person working them seems to end up getting a pretty raw deal.

At the junction for the Whitchurch Arm, the canal turns fairly tightly and has a lift bridge. Combine this with a stiff breeze, and we ended up having to use a pole to push off from the bank. We were quite relieved to reach Grindley Brook. There were a few boats ahead of us in the queue for the staircase lock, so we took the chance to fill with water, and buy some supplies from the lockside shop. Be warned, the wine is expensive there!

When our turn came to go through the staircase, we were preceded by another hire boat, whose crew didn't seem to know what they were doing. As we passed into the final lock chamber, there was an almighty crash, and 15 tons of boat came to an abrupt halt in the space of an inch. The crew in front of us hadn't wound down the paddle fully on one of the bottom gates, so as we passed through, the lock was slowly emptying itself. Luckily the lockkeeper spotted what had happed, and we wound down the paddle and refilled the lock from the next chamber up. As we got to the next lock, we discovered that the other hire boaters had neglected to wind the paddles down at all on this lock! Then then proceeded to moor up in the short pound between two locks. We'd been following this boat for a few miles before Grindley Brook, and at times we were catching them up very quickly despite being at tickover speeds. We made a mental note to try and get some distance ahead of them.

By the time we had got through all the Grindley Brook locks, it had taken a few hours, so we stopped at the moorings next to bridge 27 for a spot of lunch. At the same time we kept an eye out for the other boat, so as to not get stuck behind them again. They would have ruined my tight schedule! As we prepared to get under way after lunch, the other boat just came into view, so we got moving sharpish.

By this time I thought I was getting the hang of getting the boat in a position for the lock-workers to get off, and olding the boat in the channel, ready for the lock gates to open. When we reached Marbury lock, I found that the by weir is quite decptive, as it passes under the towpath, and you can end up stuck against the towpath, with the flow of the water holding you against it. That needed a good dose of horsepower and a hefty shove to get us out of trouble!

We kept on cruising until we approached Wrenbury, passing more of those blasted lift bridges. At the Wrenbury lift bridge (No. 20) I was gratul we weren't in a bigger boat, as the Alvechurch Boat Centre makes the turn very tight indeed.

We moored at Wrenbury for the night, and my parents sampled one of the local pubs, which left them somewhat unimpressed.

Day 5

From Wrenbury we had planned to get to the end of the Llangollen Canal. We knew we wouldn't be doing this in the boat though, as we would have had to go through the four Hurlseton locks, down the Shropshire Union Canal for half a mile, then turn round and do it all again. Instead we winded next to the Wrexham Road bridge (No. 6), which was easy as the winding hole appeared to have been dug out big enough for the QE2! We moored the other side of the bridge, and walked to Hurleston Junction. For some reason, some of our group had it in their head that there was a pub at the end, and they refused to accept my denial that there was. When they got to Hurleston, they realised that just because they thought there should be a pub there didn't mean there would be a pub there!

Hurleston Junction turned out to be quite underwhelming, though the volume of water flowing into the reservoir made it apparent why the canal flows as fast as it does. We got back to the boat just as it started to rain, so we ate our lunch on the boat and waited for it to clear up. Unfortunately this turned out to be more than a passing shower, and I'd planned a reasonable cruising distance for the afternoon, so I donned my waterproofs and sat on the back of the boat, with my girlfriend diving out from under cover as we approached each lock. Actually I hadn't planned a reasonable cruising distance for this day, but had instead planned to reach Marbury. This would have left us with a huge 23 mile, 12 hour cruise for the next day though, so I decided to try and make up time in advance. We managed to get all the way back to the visitor moorings below Grindley Brook before the light started to fade, so I whacked the mooring pins in and tied the boat up before going in to dry out.

Once inside, we found that the gas hob wouldn't light. There was no gas flowing out the burners. We checked the gas bottles, and checked the changeover valve, but couldn't isolate the problem. Much head-scratching ensued, until someone closed the lid and opened it again, at which point gas flowed freely. Turns out the lid must have been open 89 degrees instead of 90, which wasn't enough the operate the safety mechanism. Lesson learned for next time!

Day 6

The next morning I found out that in my hurry to whack the mooring pins in the evening before, I hadn't done a particularly good job. The result is that there is a mooring pin in the cut below Grindley Brook! The day passed by uneventfully, and I experienced the annoyance of the lift bridges for myself. We pushed on and managed to reach Ellesmere in time for a very late lunch at the Red Lion. We managed to find a mooring spot close to the marina entrance, which spared us the trouble of going up the town arm, turning, and heading back down again. By the time we got back to the boat it was getting late in the day, so we managed a short distance cruising in the evening sun, and managed to reach Hindford, with the Jack Mytton within easy walking distance.

Day 7

Because we had to have the boat back at Chirk marina early the next morning, we knew we'd have to moor nearby, and that as a result we wouldn't make it all the way to Llangollen. We had decided though that it would be criminal not to take the chance to go over the Pontcysyllte aqueduct. after heading through the New Marton locks which had seemed a little daunting 5 days ago, a lock-free cruise was ahead of us.After heading over the Chirk aqueduct, there was no wait to go through Chirk tunnel. As we approached Pontcysyllte aqueduct, it was difficult to tell whether the boat in the distance was heading towards us or away from us!. Crossing the aqueduct itself is quite an amazing experience when on the back of the boat, as you can step off one side of the boat straight onto the towpath, while stepping off the other side will give you a very long drop! Once over the aqueduct, we managed the tight turn to head upstream. We cruised as far as the Bryn Howell hotel winding hole, then moored in one of the wider sections for luch. "Wider" is relative, as the narrowness and shallowness of the canal at this point is quite noticable. After lunch we headed back to Trefor, and found that the turn after bridge 31 is really quite tight! Back over the aqueduct and we moored at the visitor moorings below bridge 28. Shortly after mooring we were joined by the boat who caused us all the annoyance on day 4.

Day 8 

We left the Fron visitor moorings nice and early to get ahead of the "other" boat. We made the short journey back to the marina, and managed to negotiate the tight turn into the marina entrance. A few minutes later the "other boat" followed us, but failed to negotiate the entrance properly, resulting in a large bang as they crashed into the marina entrance.

We really enjoyed the holiday, and would certainly do it again. In fact, we did...