Telford to Wrexham

 In the style of the Tour de France, we had a rest day yesterday, and I spent the whole day just lying around and relaxing.

Today we set off from Telford to cycle to Shrewsbury. 

It took a while to find the start of the route, but eventually we found a lift on this bridge that took us down to the road below and we were on our way. 

For about the first time ever, it all seemed to be downhill and we glided down to Shrewsbury. We had time to have a look around, although it was full of cars and not very exciting, and then we bumped the bikes down lots of steps to the train station.

We caught a train to a little place called Chirk, which is right next to the Shropshire Union Canal. Within two minutes we were on the tow path, and a few minutes later we reached the Whitehouse Canal Tunnel.

It was exciting , atmospheric, long and dark, and when we got to the other end it raining. Welcome to Wales we thought. 

The wind was picking up too as we approached the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

It is another amazing piece of engineering dating back to the Industrial Revolution.

With a big link to the start of our trip today, the Aqueduct was designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1805. It is a 307 metre long cast iron trough that is 38 metres above the River Dee, and is the longest and highest in the world.

Me and my lovely bike felt every metre of that height and distance, and were very relieved to reach the other side.

Our journey then carried on without any more scares to Wrexham, home of the newly and multiply promoted Wrexham Athletic Football Club.

There is a lot of building work going on as a massive new stand is being created.

We took a nice stroll around the town and it had a nice flock of concrete sheep scattered all around, a pretty church and a café with excellent scones.