One of the joys of getting old is the senior citizen railcard, on Wednesday I managed a 5 1/2 hour rail journey from Newton Abbot to Chirk for only £38 to see @Scubahead and @millycf1976 on their narrowboat on the Llangollen canal which gave me the chance to cross the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the River Dee which is a Grade I listed structure and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
If I’m going to be brutally honest the weather today has been rather foul and didn’t really stop raining all day it is winter in North Wales but low clouds and fog did make the trip across very atmospheric. With lots of opportunities for flying my new drone as you can see from some of the photos.
Built by Thomas Telford in the late 1700 and finished in 1805 it's just over 300m long and straddles almost 40m above the River Dee there is no parapet or handrail on the left-hand side so you look over the drop as you drive across. 18 stone pillars support a trough made of cast iron plates bolted together and originally sealed with Welsh flannel and white lead.
@scubahead actually let me drive Badger across but only because standing on the left you are next to the edge and he really doesn’t do heights. The trough is only a little wider than a narrowboat and the sheer drop on the left-hand side is rather disconcerting. Rather unusually for a canal, there is a current flowing north to south in the Langothllin as it is fed from the River Dee so you have to give it quite a bit of throttle as you cross, and once you start it really does seem to go on forever.
If any of you Hivers fancy a trip across there is a company based on the north end of the aqueduct that hires day boats and run trips so I hope you have a good head for heights and be aware it's really busy in the summer.