It was another very quiet mooring, just across from The Navigation. We were awake fairly early this morning, and set off at 7.30. The Monty is a slow canal anyway, and we wanted to make sure we were at Frankton Locks in good time. It was only a mile to the bottom of the Aston Locks, but took half an hour. There’s a speed limit of 2mph below Queen’s Head, but there don’t seem to be the big signs and posts to measure your speed against, that I remember from last time. At the locks, the bottom one was empty, but the two two were full.
Lots of the Monty is reedy, narrow, and straight.
The views of the Breidden Hills were gradually disappearing in cloud, so I was pretty certain rain was on its way. It did have a go for maybe twenty minutes or so, but while we put our coats on it never came to much. As we went into Graham Palmer Lock a boat arrived, and said they had been the only one down this morning. As we approached Frankton Locks, the lockie was walking along with a lost collie dog, trying to find the owner. We went up the two individual locks, and then into the staircase, which was ready for us, with a volunteer to help.
The lockie returned with the dog, and was trying to figure out what to do with it. We came up the locks and turned left towards Llangollen. The bridge numbers start from 1 again, but with a W to show they’re west. We had good luck at the New Marton Locks, with a boat coming out of each so we could go straight in. In between, we passed a boat that had been featured in a boat test, and I had a quick chat with the owners. The boat coming down the top lock said they’d passed at least thirty boats heading for Llangollen this morning. At the top, we went through the bridge onto the water point.
We filled the tank, got some washing on, and had lunch. It was a very fast tap, so didn’t take long. We were under way again at about 1pm; we’d been thinking of stopping at Chirk Bank, but by the time we got there it was only just after 2, so we decided to carry on. We had to wait for a boat coming across the aqueduct, but then it was our turn.
It was pretty breezy as we crossed into Wales. While we’d been waiting we’d seen a boat go into the tunnel, which is immediately after the aqueduct. Looking through, we could see they were still inside, so we followed. It was a real struggle to get through against the flow of water. It took 13 minutes, and I’ll be interested to see how long it takes on the way back. At the other end there were three boats already waiting — but way back beyond the visitor moorings, not on the waiting bollards — and more heading their way. Whitehouses Tunnel seemed even slower; we actually came to a halt near the end. We moored up on the first SUCS moorings at Froncysyllte, where it’s a little more open. Adrian had run out of milk, but a phone call established that the Froncysyllte post office had some, so we walked down the canal and up the hill to the shop. There was a lovely view of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the way.
Down towards the lift bridge there were boats everywhere — three going towards Llangollen and four the opposite way. By the time we came back from the shop, the Llangollen-bound boats were almost at the aqueduct, which we walked along to see. Hopefully when we go across first thing tomorrow morning we there will be slightly less chaos.
16 miles, 10 locks. (200 miles, 132 locks)
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