Today the weather was advertised as rain between showers, in fact apart from tomorrow the weather forecast is not great for the rest of the holiday. Fortunately we don’t have to rush to get back to Wolverhampton which leaves plenty of drying out time. Two days ago we were a few miles from Ellesmere and the clouds overhead were a bit dark and menacing. We could see that about 20 miles south the clouds stopped and the sky was blue. This was probably above Bishop’s Castle.

Today we left Llangollen and retraced our route over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. As I drove on the way over it was Gills turn. She was a bit blasé yesterday when I did it, but today once we reached the other side she confessed to not looking down and was shaking.

We visited the visitor centre to shelter from the rain and find out a little more about the aqueduct. It has 19 cast iron arches supported by 18 brick piers which become hollow half way up. This is to save weight and is why Telford was regarded as a genius, if they were solid they would have collapsed under their own weight. The joints in the troughs were sealed with Welsh flannel, white lead, hemp and tar, one imagines all sorts of experiments in a workshop somewhere trying to perfect the recipe. The trough is 1000ft long and 126ft above the river. 

We are now moored in Chirk where we will spend the night before moving onto Ellesmere tomorrow. We plan to meet up with Sian, Will, Ellen and Henry on Saturday, Ellesmere mere is a good place to feed the ducks, perhaps they also have duck on the menu in the restaurant overlooking the water.