There are canals all over from the days when they used horses to pull the barges with goods from town to town. Now the canals are used for recreation.

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We took a train to Chirk, Wales to get to the Marina and pick up our Narrowboat, Exmouth. We decided that we would call a taxi from the train depot when we got in to Chirk, the Marina was only a few miles away.

However, when we got to Chirk there was nothing. No buildings, no phone, no ticket office, nobody... only stairs leading up. We went up the stairs to see what was around and again, there was nothing. We lucked out though when two women from New Zealand (they were doing the boat thing too) came to pick up some of their group and we were the only ones there, so they gave us a ride.



They start you off with a quick overview of how everything works (like how to not sink over-night) then you're pretty much on your own. We all tried to listen to the instructions, but I'm sure we forgot some of them, but we didn't sink (though we never remembered or figured out what the switch in the middle closet was for).

This is the inside of the boat (understand the Narrow part now?), with our living/dining room and kitchen. This boat made me realized just how big our flat really is.





Here are the super narrow beds. One is a double and the other two are singles. You can't just turn over on the singles though, you have to turn in place.


We started out heading west toward the town of Llangollen and crossed the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (Pont-ker-sulth-tee).

The canal is 127 feet high and 1000 feet long and crosses the waters of the River Dee. It was completed in 1805.

On the one side there isn't anything except the side of the canal. It just drops straight down. As you can tell, it didn't take long for all of us (except Gramps) to get off the boat and walk on the tow path on the far side (and the side with the railing).

And the view from the aqueduct was breathtaking.




There's even a soccer field down there.

Since we picked up the boat after 3:00 we didn't have long before we stopped for the night. Unfortunately, you can only be on the canal during daylight hours and you have to stop at sundown. We were just outside Llangollen so we moored and had to trek into town with our flashlights. It was very cold. But the pub we found had good food (except Grampa's he got some liver and bean thing, yech) and it was warm. Only problem, we had to walk back also.

We went into Llangollen the next morning to get stuff from the grocery store and to check out some shops. It's a really cute town.

Just past Llangollen is the end of that part of the navagable canal, so there is a turn around area and we headed back (Grampa had to do all the manuevers of that kind, we could only steer going forward). There are also some one way parts and you have to run ahead to make sure no one else is coming, so Mackenzie and Gramma took off in the rain while I took pictures (it would rain on and off the whole trip).

Continue on the Narrowboat Trip