31st July 1st August 2010
I chose the Llangollen Canal for my first trip as it is relatively local so I could be dropped off and collected from the start and finish without much difficulty, and with BCU membership is navigable by kayak (as are most, if not all canals). While planning this trip I discovered that there was very little information available out there on kayaking canals.
One page I did find useful was this one. http://www.kanoroutes.nl from a Dutchman who has paddled a few UK canals. (It was the route map on his web site I pinched and taped to my boat), but he didn’t seem to have any advice on staying overnight on this route.
The next thing I looked for was some kind of route card, I was hoping for a mile by mile breakdown of the canal, and after some searching I found this page and at the bottom was what I was after. Bridge names and numbers, locks and other features and most important to me, the distances to them. The data he supplied wasn’t very useable for me so I spent some time transferring it across to a spreadsheet.
This spreadsheet became a work in itself and I had half a dozen formulas all working out something different with the goal of working out how long it would take me to paddle the length of it (I had probably over complicated it if truth be told but I like formulas) I will try and link this spreadsheet to the blog here.
I had to make some assumptions on a few things, how fast I would paddle, how long I would stop and sight see, how long it would take for me to portage the locks, etc. I know that I can paddle comfortably at about 6 knots in my boat on an afternoon, so I programmed into the spreadsheet a speed of 5 knots (to account for fatigue). I gave myself an arbitrary time of ten minutes for each portage, and I also allowed for some sight seeing time and a lunch break. The theoretical paddle would take me 14 hours.
I am ambitious but I was aware that 14 hours of paddling was going to be an ask for myself, and I had already a mind to camp overnight anyway, so I started to look for a suitable campsite at around about the halfway distance. It turns out there aren’t any sites right on the canal bank until mile 32 (of 44) but I was sure I would be able to paddle that distance, so I booked the site and the date was set.
My attention then turned to equipment and provisions. I listed down everything I would need, and even worked out the weights of everything that I would be taking. Tent, cooker, change of clothes, food, etc. because the Speeder is no featherweight, I didn’t want to add much weight and decided that only 10 additional kilos would be acceptable. However, by the time it came to bringing all of the equipment together it totalled up to an astounding 19kgs. As I looked at my collection of stuff there was nothing I wanted to do without. The heavy items, (tent, cooker, clothes) I needed, and the rest that I didn’t need (first aid kit, iPod, book) barely weighed anything on their own. I decided (foolishly) that I would take it all.
The first mistake I made was to not try lifting the loaded boat until I was at the quayside. I can lift 45kgs of boat and equipment and I can carry it short distances but it was not going to be easy.
I got to the canal at Wharf Hill at about 8am, there is a little café who kindly let me launch from their site. I loaded the boat up, taped my map to the deck and lowered the heavy boat into the canal. There is quite a drop from the wharf side to the water and getting into the boat was not as easy as it could be. A technique I perfected through the day was to drop into the boat as quickly as possible which, with practice didn’t tip me in.
I was concerned that I would have trouble on the water with the additional weight but paddling the Speeder with 20kgs of ballast in the rear locker and behind the front footplate, was a dream. Sitting lower in the water, and with the additional mass, once I was up to speed she flew through the water without deviation. I would even suggest that the additional weight meant that speed was maintained when I paused paddling.
The upper reaches of the canal are beautiful. Very narrow and for long stretches I did wonder what I would do had a narrow boat been coming in the other direction. Thankfully it seems the vast majority of boaters don’t rouse until after nine in the morning so I had the water to myself.
After a little under five miles I came to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, built by Telford and Jessop to carry the canal over the River Dee. I was always looking forward to crossing this feat of engineering, being 38 metres up and exposed on the water side of the structure and I wasn’t disappointed.
Shortly after the Aqueduct I came to Fron Lift bridge. I hadn’t considered lift bridges to be a problem for me as I thought I could happily limbo under them. I was wrong. I had to portage around this bridge which meant I had to get out of the boat (not easy when the bank is over a foot above the lip of the cockpit) get the boat out of the water, and carry it around the obstacle. I had an audience for my first portage in the form of a couple having breakfast on their balcony so wasn’t too keen on having a swim. Getting out was wobbly, carrying the boat the ten metres or so was very difficult as the boat was too heavy to sling over my shoulder, and dropping back into the boat (At this point I hadn’t had much practice at this) took several nervous attempts. But I made it and was on my way again.
A couple of miles later I came to the Whitehouse tunnel which is 174 metres long. I am pretty certain that it is frowned upon, if not prohibited to paddle down the tunnels on the canal network. I found contradictory evidence on the internet so was unsure but with such a cumbersome boat I decided to paddle not portage. I made sure I had a front facing white light and had no issues (I had at this point only seen one other boat so I wonder that at a busier time of day I might have met oncoming traffic).
Not long after the Whitehouse tunnel is the Chirk tunnel. I had read on the Dutch kayakers website that the longer Chirk tunnel had to be portaged, and this was reinforced by a narrow boat coming out who quite forcefully (but politely) told me that I was to walk the tunnel as there were a lot of holiday boaters out there and I should be careful. I assured them that I would walk and then donned my head torch and paddled it. My reasoning was that I am faster than the narrow boats are, and that they can’t mean me when they talk about unpowered craft, as I am powered by me. Either way I didn’t have any problems.
Immediately after the Chirk tunnel is the Chirk Aqueduct, and I had to wait for some minutes for two narrow boats to cross this. Chirk aqueduct is not as spectacular as Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, but still an engineering marvel in its own right.
After this glut of interesting features I then had a few miles of straight uneventful paddling. To allay any boredom I decided to take some photos on the move. While under power the Speeder has good tracking but I discovered it is quite sensitive to body position, and as soon as I stopped forward motion to reach for the camera I would veer off course, which at one point nearly resulted in me wiping out the family of ducks I was trying to photograph.
New Marton Locks were my next challenge. Two locks in quick succession. There was a young family working their way up through the top lock so again I had to portage with an audience. I had by this point got quite good at getting out, but my boat carrying was a sort of strained waddle, and getting in was still a nervy business. At the bottom lock I put my hand onto a nettle while getting out, this hurt for the rest of the day.
I was due to take lunch at the Marton Locks but I was ahead of myself by about half an hour so I decided to press on until I was hungry. For the next hour I overtook many narrowboats heading in the same direction. It became a bit of a game as I saw the next boat in the distance. I was much faster than they were but I discovered that while overtaking some kind of fluid dynamic would drag me towards their hull, I could correct for it but it was hard work until I broke out of the bow wave.
It started to rain at lunch time so I stopped like a troll, under a bridge. I was pretty exhausted by then, I had covered about 15 miles but was enjoying myself. The narrowboat fraternity are the nicest people in the world, everyone I met and passed said hello and compared with the river Severn (my usual haunt) there was so much to see.
After lunch I had a long 10 mile(ish) paddle of nothing and I got very tired. One thing that always surprises me when I am kayaking is the range of muscles that are worked, my back, my torso, my legs. All of the major muscle groups were aching and I decided to stop at the Prees Branch Junction for a breather. I had to start rationing my water as I was running low, I discovered a large blister in the palm of my left hand, and I still had about 7 miles to go. It was a bit of a low moment and I considered calling for an early pick up, I think the only reason why I didn’t at that point was because I couldn’t see a road that I could get picked up from. I eventually set off again, rounded a corner and saw in the near distance, a swing bridge that I would have to portage shortly. I was not amused.
I gritted my teeth a bit and just ground out the miles, I can’t remember much of the scenery, but I know there were a couple more portages I had to struggle through. All I knew was that I had to get to Grindley Brook Staircase Locks and the campsite was at the bottom where I could finally stop. I made it to the staircase at about 5pm just as a narrowboat was about to descend.
I nipped over and asked the lock keeper if I could lead my boat through on a line behind the narrowboat but he wasn’t going to let me, kindly allowing me to walk around the locks instead. There were six of these locks. The owner of the narrowboat going through, The Black Pearl, then kindly offered for my boat to ride through on his coach roof as long as I didn’t mind the slow pace of going through I don’t think he appreciated how much I had come to loath locks, and swing bridges. I don’t know how long it took to get through all of the locks and I didn’t really care, I was having fun helping operate the locks with my saviours. The campsite was at the bottom of the last lock and I was pleased to stop. I set the tent, had something to eat and was done for the day.
I had planned to finish the final 12 miles of Llangollen the following day. The first days worth of portages had strained my shoulder though and the final 12 miles contained a further 12 locks. The boat was too heavy for that and I decided to end the trip at the campsite.
So now to plan for the next one. The first thing I am going to have to do is reduce the weight of my kit, either by taking less, or getting lightweight substitutes.
