Whixall

Our time up at Whitchurch we needed to move today. Unusual for us as we tend not to on Sunday, preferring instead to find a roast dinner venue, not today though. Still it was fairly sunny, but not forecast to last long. The crew nipped ahead to prepare the lift bridge, this was to be the first of four bridges for the crew to raise and lower during our journey.

       

                                              Whitchurch lift bridge and junction.

Just after the bend we stopped at the Viking Afloat hire base to top up the water and empty some rubbish. We did not need to buy anything but no charge was made for using their facilities. This impressed me as a lot of places now want to charge for water, unless you are spending money so we will try and use them for diesel or gas on our return in a couple of weeks.

After passing bridge 38 the canal ran parallel with the English/Welsh border for about a mile, at one point we were only one field away from Wales, before the route of the canal and the border parted ways again. Every so often, through the trees we could see the mountainous horizon in the distance, hopefully a taste of things to come as we reach Llangollen.

A couple of miles further and we reached our destination, Prees Junction. This arm of the canal is only a mile long terminating at Whixall Marina. After securing the boat, we walked the length of the arm and found it to be very rural tranquil spot. The water appeared clear and there was an abundance of flowering lily pads. Despite having a Marina at the end it appears not to be a heavily used stretch of water.

       

                                     Prees Junction, 200 yards ahead of our mooring spot.

       

                                 Lilly pads that extended almost the entire length of the arm.

       

                    Looking through the final bridge. Not much passing room towards the end.

Returning to the boat the sun finally disappeared and it is now overcast and muggy. The Llangollen canal has a lot of hire bases on it, and this is evident by the amount of hire boat traffic which we are seeing. I think this will only increase now as we near the school holiday season. We only plan on staying here overnight, then subject as always to the weather we will head off tomorrow towards Ellesmere.

       

                                                    Our mooring spot at Whixall.

Totals 5 Miles

Running total 321 Miles 159 Locks 11 Tunnels