Michael Donning

Llangollen has some nice little destinations. I.E. there's a steam train running or you could walk to the horseshoe falls and do a picknick. We very much enjoyed the short (but upwards) hike to Castell Dinas Brân. On "the other end" of the Llangollen Canal. There's Snugburys Ice Cream near Nantwich. Well reachable from the Llangollen Canal over the fields (see dashed lines on the map). Nothing spectacular, but when you travel with small (or old) kids.... Sorry, I already mentioned this recently in a another post: From the "southern end" of the Macclesfield Canal you can reach the "folly" Mow Cop. Nice rock formations and great views from the hill:

We did the 4 Counties on our hireboat holidays last summer (2023). We started in Stoke on Trent and went clockwise. We had hired the boat for 11 days and arrived at the harecastle tunnel early and did a small detour on the Macclesfield Canal to stop one day on which we did a hike on Mow Cop. If you plan on going on the Caldon Canal you might want to consider going clockwise as well. In that case you will arrive at the junction after having gone through the harecastle and are more on the safe side with your schedule. Another option might be going further on the wide part of the Shroppie. The section to Beeston ist IMHO beautiful and Beeston Castle seems to be a worthwhile destination for a hike. Personally, I would refrain from going further on the canal to Chester as you said you would rather skip bigger towns. Also there's quite a long section of permanent moorings to pass by in tickover before getting to Chester which can be slightly "boring". Or you could also go on the Llangollen canal for a smaller bit until i.e. Wrenbury or Whitchurch. The llangollen is very beautiful & rural in the "lower parts" and you would be able to do some liftbridges. Mooring: Our family preferred moorings with nice views and not too many boats around. Our nicest moorings were on the Shroppie and the Middlewich Branch. Although we often chose locations with a wide underwater "shroppie shelf" where we had to use the plank. When mooring in those places it is also a good idea to lower the fenders (those "rubber sausages" you find on hireboats) below the water level to dampen the "impact" between the underwater shelf and the boat. Here are three of our "shelf" moorings: Brewood. Nice little village which is worth a walk. This was one of the widest shelf. We had to put the bow "on the shelf" first to let the crew on land. (Or you do that under the bridge from which I took the photo). Maybe a bit too fiddly if you're only two on the boat. Audlem, near the crossing over the River Weaver. Wonderful view: (and also a nice little village) (Middlewich Branch) Church Minshull Visitor Moorings. Some of the moorings are also without the "shelf". There's a pub not too far away: And a view of the "folly" on Mow Cop (reachable from the Macclesfield Canal):

Chas Hardern is a good choice IMHO. We hired a boat from Chas in the summer of 2019. The Shroppie from Beeston to the middlewidch Branc is already very nice. There's a castle at Beeston which you might want to plan in before or after your hire. The first part of the llangollen is very rural. This is beautiful but you might have to do the extra mile for groceries. 😉 Although from a stop at Lift Bridge 19 (Wrenbury Church) there was a nice foot path over the church yard to a small village store in Wrenbury. In Ellesmere there's a TESCO directly at the canal arm. (Might want to avoid going into the small arm in summer holidays.) Don't worry to get a mooring spot in Llangollen. Try at the basin first and in the unlikely event there's no space then turn around an get a place at the towpath. "Smaller" walks from the mooring are up to the Dinas Bran castle ruins which my kids enjoyed very much or up the remaining llangollen to horseshoe falls. (On the way, you might step down to the rocks of the river dee if river flow permits.) Anyway, even a shopping tour to ALDI along the river is a beautiful walk in Llangollen. 🙂 In case there are stoppages on the Llangollen then you can consult the people from Chas Hardern. There are plenty of alternatives when starting from Beeston.

Ok, I missed that one. Perhaps because it started in April. (Although there's an update on 26th June)

Hi, as being only an occasional hireboater, I hope that this post is OK and this closure isn't already posted elsewhere. The company where we hired our boat for this year in August "Black Prince, Stoke-on-Trent" sent me a notice that the Macclesfield Canal and the Peak Forest Canal will be closed from 10th July onwards. Regarding the news from CRT this is the result of the closure of the Bosley- and the Marple lock flights due to water shortage. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/news/peak-forest-and-macclesfield-canals-update I am a bit surprised though that the stoppage isn't listed on the CRT notices page, yet. And there's still hope (for bad weather): "Water holdings will be monitored carefully throughout the summer and if there is adequate rainfall it will be possible to reopen the canals to full navigation. " ... Sorry I just noticed that the Stoppages Forum would be better suited, if the mods agree, feel free to move this post... Sorry again.

There's a site which archives many sites. In that archive there's still a copy of the firstmateguides site: https://web.archive.org/web/20181102231509/http://firstmateguides.co.uk/

We did the trip this summer (but not from Chirk Marina). Llangollen is "right around the corner" from your start point. It'll be around 3h from the marina to Llangollen basin. For me the most "challenging" part was going "upstream" in the chirk tunnel. But you'll only do that on the end of your trip when returning to the marina. The only challenging part on that tunnel also is that you're going unexpectedly slow and that you might notice that your boat is pointing a bit sideways while going straight. You will pass the moorings on Froncysyllte (before the aqueduct) maybe half an hour after you have started. So I doubt that you already want to already moor just then. In Trevor, there are a few (I think 2) moorings to the right just after the footbridge across the Telford Inn (those are not available on friday-saturday I think...). There also a few more (I think 3) moordings when you continue into the Basin passing under Bridge 29W. But be prepared that you'll have to wind back there. Actually we met some boaters who told us that they forgot to turn left to Llangollen after the aqueduct and ended up in the Trevor Basin where they moored right away. For visiting the aqueduct and Trevor/Trefor we moored at bridge 34W on our way back from Llangollen. That is a wonderful place IMHO. It is not the closest mooring the the Aqueduct though. From there you have multiple options to walk to the Aqueduct/Trevor: via the towpath, via a previous railway line (map recommended) or down the hill via a road (passing the "Pont Cysyllte" road bridge). Like many here already said. I don't see any problems when you go to Llangollen first. Just go slow when you're unsure. The slower you go, the faster you can stop.

Much of that information (shops, pubs, etc.) is already available in the Openstreetmap project. I think I remember that the author of the Open Canal Map had some discussion with the OSM guys about the project name (I don't know how it turned out). Anyway it could as well be added separately to the OCM. By the way, I forgot to add the proper disclaimer about my map source. Here it is: Map Data: © OpenStreetMap-Contributors, SRTM | Map display: © OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA)

We actually fetched some Welsh Oaties from Gerrards bakery (I think) in Llangollen. Butchers weren't a topic as our family of five had only one meat eater which wan't interested in doing his own shopping. But if certain butchers and/or bakeries are recommended here for those locations then I can update the maps at a later time.

Hi all! We did a 2 weeks hireboat trip in mid July to Llangollen + Chester. One thing that I didn't expect to happen so often was shopping for food. But we had 3 constantly growing teens in the crew which ate us out of boat and home. Another reason may've been also that we arrived (from Germany) by plane. So we did only some essential food shopping before getting afloat on our Snowmane of Chas Hardern Boats. Considering that. I thought that it might be helpful to post some notes and maps on the topic food shopping for other canal visitors. Generally, I propose that you bring a backpack or just any other convient bags (i.e. IKEA bags) for shopping. This depends also on how many hands you have to carry the food (count only one hand for each teen as the other is constantly occupied by the phone). The footpaths which I marked on the maps are often NOT quite suitable for anything with wheels. Nantwich (Shopshire Union Canal): Ok, Nantwich is off topic. But I'll add it anyway as it is quite close to the Hurleston Locks/Llangollen Canal and we actually DID do shopping there. We had to search quite a bit for a mooring spot here. The town seems to be popular. At least in summer and on a saturday. Our walk went through a quiet residential area where we spotted at least 4 cats ? and then through the park along the River Weaver. Wrenbury: There's a SPAR at Wrenbury. Despite its small size you find nearly everything in there. We took the public footpath across a field from liftbridge 19 which (officially) crosses a graveyard. For me, this little village resembles somehow a location of the Midsomer Murders tv series. Whitchurch: You might have to fiddle a bit with the winding holes when coming from north. The footpath follows the former continuation of the Whitchurch Arm. Therefore you avoid any steep climbs. ? Quite a walk but not boring. Ellesmere: You'll find the Tesco right at the end of the Ellesmere Arm. But it can be difficult to find a mooring spot here in the summer. You may consider mooring on the Llangollen outside the Arm. The walk isn't far anyway. I'll skip Chirk. We saw on the map that you could moor up right after the Chirk Tunnel (North side) and walk to a SPAR. But surprisingly we spared this one. Llangollen: In Llangollen, you moor along the canal or in the marina. In any case, if you stay longer than 4 hours then you have to pay a fee of 6£ per day. For this, you'll get water and shore line (if you brought a 16A, "blue", camping type cable, I think) at each mooring spot. I marked the Llangollen Wharf where you can obtain the ticket or ice cream or narrowboat themed towels.... The horse drawn boats also start there. Obviously, there are some shopping opportunities in Llangollen. We found the walk along the river Dee to get to the ALDI actually quite pleasant.

CanalPlan already allows to set inidividual speeds for different waterway types and locks/swing bridges in the preferences. But using "realistic" average times would nevertheless be interesting. Especially if the "season" and the individual "profile" would be taken into account. This might give a better impression about travel times on very popular canals. (Like the Llangollen in Summer Holidays) including wait times at locks. If inidividual travel times/gps will be collected it might be very important to let the user tell the app if it is mooring (filling up water, eating, etc.) or just standing by for a lock becoming available. In my very limited personal experience as a hireboater on the GU I also found that the default travel times of canalplan ac were a bit optimistic. 3 1/4 mp/h average on a "broad" canal weren't achievable. Our trusty narrowboat became uncomfortable when getting above 3.5/3.6 mph (also the wash then often began to show). And on a big percentage of the canal we had to travel anyway on tickover (which was around 1,5 to 2,0 mph) because of mooring boats or we had to slow down because of bridges/tunnels/narrow bends etc. (I read those speeds using the "OruxMaps" app)

I've seen in their forum that CanalPlan can also deliver JSON-Files. But basically, that makes no difference. I still don't see the point of the moving camera. Either you are using the map while on the canal then the camera might just follow the GPS. Or you are mooring/at home then you can manually scroll the map on which the route is displayed. Route planning is tedious to implement. So it is a good idea to query CanalPlan for that as long as you keep the last route stored. Just have an interface to add the waypoints for the route query (from/to maybe stopovers like: From "here" (=GPS) to "winding hole" to "home marina"). The queried data will be sufficient to display nice lists with distances and travel times (with a filter for mooring/winding holes/locks/junctions etc.).

The journey time in my little tool is based on the CanalPlan journey time intervals included in their CSV export. Just added up. (People can customize these on the CanalPlan site AFAIR).

Sorry, i noticed that my screenshots were far to big. Editing wasn't possible, so here's another post with smaller images:

I hacked together a little route planner for our journey last year. It was basically a web site which ran locally on android (within the firefox browser). It used downloaded CSV data from CanalPlanAC (converted to JSON). The "logic" was done in Javascript using the "Leaflet" library and some previoisly downloaded map tiles. If it is of any use I can pack the thing together and provide it to the developer. (in its current form it was basically limited to the GU and some "sidearms")

Thank you, Paul. I'll try the directional stability force (might take a time). But I fear that it will just interfere in a bad way with my lift/draft force model. I am aware that the latter is just a very rough approximation to the real thing. The implementation of propwalk is planned. Bank effect, not planned, yet. By the way: I've read that the Coandă-effect is one of the factors which is responsible for bowthrusters becoming pretty much useless on speeds above 5kts (= ca. 5.8mph). But narrowboats don't travel at this speed (at least on canals).

Yes, I use a (quite limited) physics model in the game. There's a basic phyics engine which handles weight/gravity, inertia and forces. On top of that I add a simple 4-area buoyancy calculation and a multi-point approximated lift/draft calculation. Multi-point because opposed to an aircraft wing profile a narrowboat often moves in different directions on different positions of the boat. My much simplified model therefore wouldn't cover the effect of speed on the bowthruster. For now, I just degrade the applied force depending on the forward speed... and I added an overheating turn-off after 10secs of use. The attached image shows the draft/lift vectors of my model while turning.

Sure, I could simply display a black screen for some seconds. Would not be much different than simulating the effect of a bottle of wine on the helmsman (consumption, not the other).

Thank you. That helps much. I won't ask people for reasons why the use the bowthruster at a specific speed. I just want to be sure to simulate the correct effect (= nil ) when somebody tries it out.

Hi all! I plan to add a bow thruster in my little computer game (some people asked for it). I know how it generally works and I also know that they have virtually no effect above at "higher" speeds. (One reason why they use tug boats here on river Elbe.) But there wasn't one on our hireboat last holidays (didn't miss it) and therefore I have no idea how the effect is specifically on narrowboats. What is your personal experience? How does the effect of a bowthruster decrease at i.e. tickover, around "cruise speed" (3.5 mph) or even on higher speeds on rivers on a narrowboat (or widebeam)? I'd be happy to read from you. Thank you! Michael

People warned us about the "canal car" just as we went off in the morning in Fenny Stratford so we were well prepared. This proved once more the very friendly atmosphere on the canals even though we were hireboaters. And you learn: Nevery say "Yes" when a Heron asks to drive your car. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notice/11295/vehicle-in-canal-by-bridge-90c-h9-groveway-milton-keynes-grand-union-canal

Hi Forum, we just returned from our Journey on the Grand Union. Despite 2 days of rain we enjoyed it very much. I would like to thank the forum for the very helpful tips and leave a few words ands images to tell about our impressions on the canal from a beginners / hireboat skippers view. The Journey: We went north from Leighton Buzzard to Braunston and back. You'll find yourself cruising most of the day (we cruised around 4-8h each day). Still there's enough time left here & there for shorter visits to some places along the canal you're interested in. But cruising is what the journey makes special. And that is what we came for. While going on the canal everybody in the family had plenty of time to enjoy the travel, relax and do what they want. There's enough room on the boat or you can go for a walk on the towpath. The boat is hardly every faster than you can walk. (If you're slightly faster, there'll be boats around the next bend which you'll have to pass at Tick-Over). The Locks: The locks were wide and even though we traveled in high season there were no mentionable queues on the locks. A bit higher traffic on the leg between Napton Junction and Braunston but still bearable. But many of the locks are hard work to operate. The heavy doors some times took several attempts to get moving (especially by the kids). So we were happy everytime when we shared the locks (saves water, I know) and had assistance. Also you'll usually have a nice chats from lock to lock with the people in the other boat. The Tunnels: Actually, we found them very interesting. You often can see the end of the tunnel quite soon after you enter it (at least if no other boats are blocking the view). We had to pass the blisworth and braunston tunnel two times and it was fun. Ok, braunston tunnel must've been built by drunken surveyors. So many ditches and little bends. Anyway, we had a set of walkie-talkies with us on the journey and placed two kids as lookout in the bow. (One too look out and the second to look after the other). Kept them entertained and busy while telling us about how far the approaching boats were in the tunnel etc. The People: Are lovely. The cliché that English people are very polite and friendly proved true on the canal. Each skipper we met gave at least a friendly wave or greet when we passed. I very rarely had to pass a bridge as second because I was waved through by the other boat as soon as I got in sight. (Lost the "you first, please" battle so to say). We had a little chat with many while passing and some were especially nice and virtually flooded us with nice wishes. Similar for people on the towpath. Sometimes we felt a bit like the Queen - waving and smiling - especially when we passed families with little kids who watched the boats. Mooring: Yes, there are plenty of places where you can moor on the towpath on the Grand Union. But if you search a nice place for mooring in popular places or specifically want to moor on the next few miles (i.e. before you pass the next tunnel or series of locks) it can get problematic because of: - Maybe you're a bit picky and don't want to moor right next to a very active railway or motorway or a bridge with heavy traffic and want to use your plank only as last resort. - Maybe there's just a festival going somewhere in in the next 2 weeks and mooring is reserved these 2 weeks in advance to those which have booked (you have not). - Maybe the canal is to shallow to get anywhere near the towpath or you get near enough to it but the path is right at the water and no room to put your pegs in. (no hooks possible at that embankment) - Maybe the embankment is just to degraded and you don't want hear your boat scratching on the debris during the night. - Naturally, then there's also: Private Mooring, Long Term Mooring, Winding Holes, Marina Entries etc. Actually we didn't moor in Braunston because we could not find a proper place between the locks and Braunston turn. (Also, it was constantly raining during that day and we didn't feel like asking people out of their boats in the rain to ask for side-by-side mooring). Also we didn't find a mooring place in Blisworth on the way back (perhaps we were just too picky). Many places were reserved for a festival a week later and we didn't want to moor in the bend before the tunnel. So we went through the tunnel and found still no mooring in stoke bruerne but finally had a nice stay below the top 2 locks. Shopping (basic for food etc.): Best shopping was right at the start in Leighton Buzzard. Tesco has a visitor mooring across wyvern shipping but if you shop before you're on the boat you have to get to the other side of the canal which is a 15-20minutes walk. After you get on the boat the very helpful "absolute beginners" instructions of wyvern usually take you through the first lock away from the Tesco. We didn't visit the tesco at Fenny Straford but perhaps it is not a bad choice. We actually missed the perfect mooring for the Tesco at Wolverton (which is in a corner at the Sculptures and new Bridge) and had to walk 500m back. Didn't find the walk in town too entertaining. The little Tesco in Weedon Bec is not too far from the canal. The Boat: Was very nice. Even had a central heating and warm water by gas which we appreciated during the rainy days. Our family of 5 fit well in the Pearl (6 berths). Handling was good as long as you didn't decide to speed past 1500rpm/3.6mph. (Which seemed to be kind of intentional ;-) Boat was in best condition and people+instruction at wyvern were perfect.

Interesting fact about Braunston tunnel, I'll try to remember to watch out if we get that far. I've seen that a stroll along the "Stoke Road" above the Blisworth tunnel might not be that pleasant. But at least my passengers have a choice if they fear claustrophobia. Anyway, we visited two old mines in the Harz (here in Germany) without problems so I don't expect much drama.

Wanted to say thank you again for the great tips and info. Naturally, it seems that every direction has its advantages and either way will be wonderful, be it north or south from Linslade. I now found a really detailed Article from a family going from Linslade/Leighton Buzzwar to Braunston and back in a week. And they even went with "our" boat, the Pearl! http://www.aboutbritain.com/articles/narrowboat-holidays-grand-union-canal.asp Milton Keynes seems to be quite attractive for the kids. They're also opening a nice "Splash Park" at Willen Lake in July 15th. The above article also mentions a kids play park (naturally, there are more) at Bridge 78 in Great Linford Park.