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Llangollen Itinerary Advice


Jenny Newbie

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Hi,  my husband and I have never narrowboated.  We are renting a boat from Black Prince on a Wednesday morning for a week in  mid September starting at Chirk Marina.   Is it crazy to head straight for Llangollen?  Or should we head towards Elsemere first and tackle Llangollen and the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct at the end of our trip when we have more miles under our belts?   We know will have the Chirk Tunnel and Aquaduct shortly if we head towards Elsemere.  

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Nah. Go for it straight away.

 

Ellesmere is OK if you like Tesco and a couple of pubs, but Llangollen is great.

 

There is nothing complicated about the aqueduct.  I know people who have a fear of heights who just leave the boat in gear and hide in the cabin until they are at the other side ... but I think it's a shame because it's beautiful. 

 

Go for the good bit first and do the rest if you still have time later.

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The bit I'd be more inclined to avoid is the Trevor to Llangollen leg. There's often a snarl up in the narrows that seems to take an inordinate time to sort out and its actually quite a pleasant walk. There's a pub about half way and you can also enjoy a smug moment when you pass the boat traffic jam shenanigans!  When it rains, which it seems it can do occasionally in Wales, there's a regular bus back to Trevor. 

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1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

The bit I'd be more inclined to avoid is the Trevor to Llangollen leg. There's often a snarl up in the narrows that seems to take an inordinate time to sort out and its actually quite a pleasant walk. There's a pub about half way and you can also enjoy a smug moment when you pass the boat traffic jam shenanigans!  When it rains, which it seems it can do occasionally in Wales, there's a regular bus back to Trevor. 

But one will end up going to Llangollen to wind around anyway, although there is a winding hole about half way! The narrows tend to get people agitated, maybe its the slowness due to waiting for the water in front of you taking a long time to get behind you because of the small channel and its depth.

Remember, always send a crew member up front  to warn others coming the other way that your coming, and get them to take a phone with them too, so as you are kept informed about whats happening.

That may sound tedious to the OP but it's simple in practice!

Nipper

Edited by nipper
replaced an n with a m
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1 minute ago, nipper said:

But one will end up going to Llangollen to wind around anyway,

Not if you've moored the boat in Trevor and you've walked or caught the bus you won't! :D

 

(The rest of your post nicely illustrates my point)

 

 

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Not relevant to this thread, but food for future thoughts, we did Llangollen in April. Good weather, fewer boats and plenty of room at the mooring basin. Mind you, second in command walked ahead, checked the route through the narrows, phoned gave me the 'nod' to proceed. A couple of minutes later got a call from said second in command that trip boat had passed her and ignored her concern that I was on me way. Prat!

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1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

Not if you've moored the boat in Trevor and you've walked or caught the bus you won't! :D

 

(The rest of your post nicely illustrates my point)

 

 

Why have a boat holiday, you can do it all by bus and car

49 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Not relevant to this thread, but food for future thoughts, we did Llangollen in April. Good weather, fewer boats and plenty of room at the mooring basin. Mind you, second in command walked ahead, checked the route through the narrows, phoned gave me the 'nod' to proceed. A couple of minutes later got a call from said second in command that trip boat had passed her and ignored her concern that I was on me way. Prat!

The trip boat will always ignore comments that a boat is coming

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10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Why have a boat holiday, you can do it all by bus and car

:D Yeah, ok, ok!

 

I don't know about you though, DC, but I quite often moor up and walk somewhere. In this particular case, I've moored up at Trevor, walked to Llangollen (having a pint in the pub halfway and stopping to laugh at the utter chaos caused by boats meeting the trip boat in the narrows) and I've caught the bus back when it rained. Worked pretty well for me, and I've no reason to suspect it wouldn't be an even more useful strategy for a nervous hirer like the OP. :)

 

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10 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

:D Yeah, ok, ok!

 

I don't know about you though, DC, but I quite often moor up and walk somewhere. In this particular case, I've moored up at Trevor, walked to Llangollen (having a pint in the pub halfway and stopping to laugh at the utter chaos caused by boats meeting the trip boat in the narrows) and I've caught the bus back when it rained. Worked pretty well for me, and I've no reason to suspect it wouldn't be an even more useful strategy for a nervous hirer like the OP. :)

 

No I have never walked to where I can boat to. When we hired we went up to Llangollen but we boated up there turned andboated back down, on the Saturday morning I took the boat back to the marina and with 10 minutes had a full day in Llangollen in the car.

 

When we hired we boated every minute we could.

Edited by ditchcrawler
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Thank you all.

 

 As the nervous OP, I think I'd prefer falling off the aquaduct to holding a crowd up whilst flailing ineptly in a winding hole.  Would I avoid that fate by mooring in Llangollen or Trever Basin?  

 

I like the idea of entering Llangollen when it's less crowded but we pick the boat up in the morning on a Wednesday in Chirk, and must return it a week later on Tuesday, so being in Llangollen over the weekend looks impractical.   Would it be less crowded for us in the narrows if we tied up  before the Aquaduct  early Wednesday afternoon; spent the day walking the aquduct and walking down to see it from the valley; and then did the trip over early morning Thursday?  Or could we accomplish the same thing by overnighting in Trever Basin and then going in and out of Llangollen Thursday morning?

 

 

Edited by Jenny Newbie
Grammar
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I have always got to Trevor on a Friday morning and been in Llangollen for around lunchtime.  We do have the advantage of not being tied to a schedule and stay for 48hrs in the basin. You should be well OK to go there from Chirk first.  If the weather is kind you will not regret the trip and the town is really nice with the advantage of a heritage railway to visit

 

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2 hours ago, Jenny Newbie said:

Thank you all.

 

 As the nervous OP, I think I'd prefer falling off the aquaduct to holding a crowd up whilst flailing ineptly in a winding hole.  Would I avoid that fate by mooring in Llangollen or Trever Basin?  

 

I like the idea of entering Llangollen when it's less crowded but we pick the boat up in the morning on a Wednesday in Chirk, and must return it a week later on Tuesday, so being in Llangollen over the weekend looks impractical.   Would it be less crowded for us in the narrows if we tied up  before the Aquaduct  early Wednesday afternoon; spent the day walking the aquduct and walking down to see it from the valley; and then did the trip over early morning Thursday?  Or could we accomplish the same thing by overnighting in Trever Basin and then going in and out of Llangollen Thursday morning?

 

 

There is more to Llangollen than the canal, steam trains, raging rivers, Beer!

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I'm a fairly nervous narrowboater, first year and hate holding anyone up or not finding mooring space, just to put some context to the below.

 

I was nervous about the aqueduct and the narrows and getting a mooring in Llangollen especially as I was arriving there mid August and mid week. In the end no real need to be nervous. Moored overnight about 1/2 to a mile before the aqueduct on one of the pleasant 48hr moorings and had a good walk around/explore. Next day over the aqueduct and into Llangollen, no real problems, had to wait part way across the aqueduct for a convoy of mainly hire boats to get through the tight turn on the otherside and sort themselves out enough to give us space to get pass and turn (could see lots of helpers helping out), no one getting annoyed, it's part of boating on this section of canal.

 

Narrows were done in a convoy of about 10 boats, thankfully I was in the middle as no chance of sending a lookout ahead being a solo boater. Bit of reversing was required at one point but everyone kept smiling and helping out those who were least competent.

 

Plenty of moorings in Llangollen basin the first night. Second night the basin was full but still plenty of moorings on the official paid for towpath moorings.

 

Trip back was fairly uneventful, much quieter so had to do the narrows on my own, had to reverse a short way (on a bend) but the oncoming boat crew helped out as needed.

 

To the OP - don't be too worried about it - if there are boaters in a hurry on that section of canal not expecting to get held up by fairly novice boaters then they are in the wrong place!

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6 hours ago, StationMaster said:

I'm a fairly nervous narrowboater, first year and hate holding anyone up or not finding mooring space, just to put some context to the below.

 

I was nervous about the aqueduct and the narrows and getting a mooring in Llangollen especially as I was arriving there mid August and mid week. In the end no real need to be nervous. Moored overnight about 1/2 to a mile before the aqueduct on one of the pleasant 48hr moorings and had a good walk around/explore. Next day over the aqueduct and into Llangollen, no real problems, had to wait part way across the aqueduct for a convoy of mainly hire boats to get through the tight turn on the otherside and sort themselves out enough to give us space to get pass and turn (could see lots of helpers helping out), no one getting annoyed, it's part of boating on this section of canal.

 

Narrows were done in a convoy of about 10 boats, thankfully I was in the middle as no chance of sending a lookout ahead being a solo boater. Bit of reversing was required at one point but everyone kept smiling and helping out those who were least competent.

 

Plenty of moorings in Llangollen basin the first night. Second night the basin was full but still plenty of moorings on the official paid for towpath moorings.

 

Trip back was fairly uneventful, much quieter so had to do the narrows on my own, had to reverse a short way (on a bend) but the oncoming boat crew helped out as needed.

 

To the OP - don't be too worried about it - if there are boaters in a hurry on that section of canal not expecting to get held up by fairly novice boaters then they are in the wrong place!

Thank you.  That is very reassuring. 

 

We are supposed to hire the boat at 09:30, but I have no idea when we will really be underway.  We will either moor the first night before the aquaduct like you did, or head straight over depending on crowds and how early we get there.  I can't  imagine crossing the aquaduct without taking some time to walk around it, so spending the afternoon and night moored up on the Chirk side might be a feature rather than a bug.

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On 31/08/2019 at 18:24, Jenny Newbie said:

Thank you all.

 

 As the nervous OP, I think I'd prefer falling off the aquaduct to holding a crowd up whilst flailing ineptly in a winding hole.  Would I avoid that fate by mooring in Llangollen or Trever Basin?  

 

I like the idea of entering Llangollen when it's less crowded but we pick the boat up in the morning on a Wednesday in Chirk, and must return it a week later on Tuesday, so being in Llangollen over the weekend looks impractical.   Would it be less crowded for us in the narrows if we tied up  before the Aquaduct  early Wednesday afternoon; spent the day walking the aquduct and walking down to see it from the valley; and then did the trip over early morning Thursday?  Or could we accomplish the same thing by overnighting in Trever Basin and then going in and out of Llangollen Thursday morning?

 

 

Dont worry about it, hundreds of first time hires have done this trip over the years with no problem at all. OK you meet someone in a narrow bit, then one of you just backs up a bit to where the other can pass. Just pick the boat up, head up to Llangollen and enjoy it, you are on holiday, dont worry.

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On 31/08/2019 at 09:09, nipper said:

But one will end up going to Llangollen to wind around anyway, although there is a winding hole about half way! The narrows tend to get people agitated, maybe its the slowness due to waiting for the water in front of you taking a long time to get behind you because of the small channel and its depth.

Remember, always send a crew member up front  to warn others coming the other way that your coming, and get them to take a phone with them too, so as you are kept informed about whats happening.

That may sound tedious to the OP but it's simple in practice!

Nipper

I did it single handed without a crew to send ahead. My thinking was: if I saw someone else’s crew heading my way I could inform them to report back there’s another boat coming. 

If I’d have met another single hander one of us would reverse. 

 

? 

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39 minutes ago, Goliath said:

I did it single handed without a crew to send ahead. My thinking was: if I saw someone else’s crew heading my way I could inform them to report back there’s another boat coming. 

If I’d have met another single hander one of us would reverse. 

 

?

My logic exactly. If I meet another boat's crew member we can discuss who will drop back or reverse (it can be difficult reversing back upstream); if I meet an oncoming boat who didn't send a crew member ahead then they can't complain that I didn't. Many people don't understand that a Passing Place is a place where boats can pass too. However sometimes you may meet the trip boat who don't send someone ahead and assume that they have absolute right of way, you may have an interesting discussion with them.

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For various reasons we ended up short of time so we bobbed across the aqueduct, did a quick 180 turn in the oodles of space at the other end, went back across and moored short of the Aqueduct Inn then took a taxi into Llangollen - I seem to recall it was about seven or eight quid each way.


All rather tough on me, a man abjectly terrified of heights. I had to cross by foot twice before I did it onthe boat.  I'm so bothered by heights that I (genuinely) went into a cold sweat when I stumbled onto this on TV one evening.  I could no more do that than I could lift Mount Everest:

 

https://youtu.be/cenQIhwwyuc?t=1435

Edited by Onionman
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1 hour ago, Onionman said:

For various reasons we ended up short of time so we bobbed across the aqueduct, did a quick 180 turn in the oodles of space at the other end, went back across and moored short of the Aqueduct Inn then took a taxi into Llangollen - I seem to recall it was about seven or eight quid each way.


All rather tough on me, a man abjectly terrified of heights. I had to cross by foot twice before I did it onthe boat.  I'm so bothered by heights that I (genuinely) went into a cold sweat when I stumbled onto this on TV one evening.  I could no more do that than I could lift Mount Everest:

 

https://youtu.be/cenQIhwwyuc?t=1435

You did it, in itself that's an achievement if you're  scared of heights,  during the time I moored the boat there it was common to see people gripping the railings frozen in place unable to move.

Saw one or two crawling back on hands and knees as well

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