Today we cycled to one of the highlights of our trip - the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct. It was built by Thomas Telford in 1805, cost £47,000 and was the tallest canal boat crossing in the world. It carries the Llangollen canal over the river Dee.
It was blowing a gale all day and the tiny towpath was 126 feet above the river with the wind howling down the valley. There were lots of day trippers on canal barges going across the bridge which is 1,007 feet long and 5 feet 3 inches deep. (Sorry no metric as I copied this info from a very old plaque.)
I was glad we were only on the towpath, but even that was pretty scary.
We are still wearing nearly all of our clothes at once for the bike rides as it is very cold and we cycled 38 miles today.
Daz also ran a loop of Chester City Wall before breakfast.
So how do they stop boats entering from both sides at the same time? I'm sure they didn't have traffic lights in 1805...
ReplyDeleteYou can see from one side to the other. Maybe people were more polite in the olden days. Just been through a massive tunnel and they toot their horns really loudly before setting off. Now that really would be a nightmare if they met in the middle of the tunnel.
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