Hard Miles, Hotel Keys and Hot Showers

Tuesday 6th July day 12
The uprising had been quelled, the walk would go forward into another day. Breakfast passed without the issue being raised. I think the late offer to take a taxi the 2 miles to the closest point of the start of the trail helped.
We all started out in good spirits and mile down the way, it was discovered that the keys for the room at the previous nights hotel were still in my pocket. I didn’t think it was too much of an issue but the family insisted it was mentioned in the blog.
After walking for miles without seeing any open pubs, we stumbled out of dense forest into a Macdonalds. Kathy stated she needed to use the bathroom, so there was lunch.
Another 3 or so hours of walking and we came to our destination and checked into the Osterich Inn in Castle Acre and set about taking hot showers. We eventually made our way downstairs to the bar where we decided the menu looked pretty good and stayed for dinner. An excellent choice as it turned out.
The highlight of the day were coming across a couple driving a little Vauxhall stuck in a river because “the GPS navigator said it was a road!”.

Trails, tilts and trepidation

Awoke refreshed after our first full night in a hotel. Although the room took a little bit of getting used to. The hotel is quite old and I think the building might have settled somewhat. The floor had developed a bit of a slope running from one corner. If you exited the bathroom at anything above a slow shuffle, the momentum gained from the step down in the room could take over and send you at an alarming rate into the opposite wall 3 metres away, leaving you crumpled on the floor against the bedside table. Even sleeping was a challenge. When lying down, your feet would slowly creep down the bed towards your head until your entire body is wedged up against the bedhead. To counter this, we tried hooking our feet over the end of the mattress, but as sleep overtook us, eventually we ended up against the headboard again. The only thing to do was to turn around and occasionally push off with our feet to keep in position.
We eagerly set off on our walk and everything went well for a few hours. Then I began to hear a few grumbles, then outright accusations of selfishness. I started getting black looks and people would stop conversations when I approached.
I began to suspect a mutiny might be unfolding
I may have been a little bit creative when informing my family of the distance we needed to cover.
Nevertheless, we made it to the hotel after 6 and a half hours of walking and had hot showers. I don’t know when to break tomorrows distance to them.
I may not sleep tonight.

Wales, walkies and way too much whisky

Thursday 1st July day 7
Morning arrived grey and overcast but soon gave way to drizzle and biting cold. Now, this is the Wales in summer we were expecting! It was time for a quiet day and Llangllogen would have us for another night. We found a cafe with wifi and spent the day doing all the planning and booking we were to do with the free day we would have had in London if the plane was on time.
We then retired to the canal boat where we briskly set about staring out the windows at the drizzle.
In light of nothing else constructive to do and, in preparation for the Peddars Way walk next week, I set about lightening my backpack of additional weight by ensuring that I would not be carrying the full litre of duty free 15yo Glenfiddich. Somewhat later that evening, I realised that the raindrops falling outside were actually the tears of despair of Wales, trying to express its own individuality after years of suppression. I yelled from the canal boat window that “to be Welsh is to be proud” and “it is time to rise up and claim your place in the world”, which actually came out “ffywlld llwfrd dwlup cnncffyt cnff na” which, apparently, means something else entirely in Welsh.
They were actually just raindrops, I’d had far too much whisky. I apologised to the retirees in the next mooring and went to bed.

Friday 2nd July day 8
Hagar was up for it, so we wound her up to 3 knots and with agonising slowness, Llangollen disappeared behind us. We made our way back over the foncillycte (or whatever the crap it is) aqueduct and was once again staggered by the engineering and the shear beauty of the view from the boat. We made our way to a pub called Jack Mytons, stopping on the way to take a walk up to Chirk Castle. Daniel impatiently decided to set out on his own as we were taking far to long to prepare. Morgan tried to catch up with him but he decided he would rather be alone and broke into a run. Morgan decided to come back and walk with us.
That was the last we saw of Daniel for quite some time.
Kath, Morgan and myself made our way to the castle via a trail that led through pastures always upwards, carefully avoiding the cow and sheep dung that lay in abundance on the ground. We found the castle and had a little wander around occasionally wondering where our son might be. After a couple of hours, we decided that we should head back to the boat as Daniel might have got lost and returned there. Morgan and myself returned via the farm trail while Kathy took the road in case he was wandering in traffic again. A little way down the trail, Morgan and myself ran into a distraught Daniel who upon seeing us through himself to the ground in amongst the dung saying “frigging Wales, I want to go home, stupid sheep, bloody cows, I just want to see the castle”. Morgan and myself briefly attempted sympathy before laughing uncontrollably.
Apparently Daniel had seen quite a bit of the country side but failed to locate the castle. We sent him in the right direction and continued down the trail sobbing at the cows and sheep “friggin Wales, I just want to see the castle” and giggling. We are bastards!

Saturday 3rd July day 9
I awoke alone in the bed after Kathy decided to sleep on the lounge after I may have escalated a water fight beyond reasonable retaliation. I was ok with that, she was actually quite wet.
We made our way through Ellesmere, were we stocked up supplies and unsuccessfully attempted to locate a castle, to our chosen mooring location of bridge 35 which on the map had a castle nearby. We spent the twilight hours of the day tramping through farming pasture lands following a vaguely posted trail, finding nothing. Daniel made friend with some cows. He is under the impression that they think he is a god of some sort but I think he just looked like their farmer. I don’t know why they all backed up to him.

Sunday 4th July day 10
I’d had enough of running into bridges and such so I handed over the helm to Daniel so he could hit some stuff. We banged our way back to the Vikings Afloat marina and bid good riddance to Hagar, walked into Whitchurch and caught a progression of 4 trains to get us to Thetford ready for the start of the Peddars Way walk tomorrow. Man, it’s good to be on something that doesn’t rock.

boats, beers and bruised boofheads

Friday 25th June day 1
Dropped off at airport by Ros
Arrived Singapore. So far, so good.

Saturday 26th June day 2
Flight delayed initially 1 hr due to engine problems.
1am take off aborted.
5am pilots come out to bravely face a hostile crowd to tell them that the engineers cannot find the problem and they are off on a 10 hr break.
We get ferried to hotel for a few hours.
12 midday awoken by a call telling us we leave to airport at 3pm.
5:30pm flight finally leaves singers.
11:50pm arrive Frankfurt. We are told that there are no connecting flights to London that night but we are booked onto a Lufthansa flight at 8:25 the next morning and are sent to a hotel for the night.
Sunday 27th June day 3
Wake at 5:30 to grab some breakfast and catch the 6:45 shuttle to the airport. Arrive at the Lufthansa counter (after trying to get in the check in queue without a boarding pass and being sent back to the check in machine that didn’t recognise us) where the Nazi told us we are not booked on this flight and will not issue a boarding pass without a ticket and says we must sort it out with Qantas......in the next terminal. So, 7:30 am, Kathy and myself dump the kids with the luggage and catch the sky train to the next terminal to find the Qantas desk unattended. With much frantic scurrying we track down the only Qantas staff on duty and have her hand write a ticket(reluctantly because in her opinion there was not enough time to meet the flight) for the flight which we snatched and sprinted. As luck would have it, we ended up with Eva Braun again who was actually quite pleasant when presented with a ticket (though Kathy still wanted her name, rank and serial no.)
So arrive in London at 9 and race for the tube to Euston and grab tickets to get us to Whitchurch to meet the canal boat before 5pm. We arrive right on 5 and get a run down on the boat operation and safety features which we nodded knowingly through with red rimmed eyes stifling yawns. Blah, blah, blah. Something about running out of Fosters not being an emergency. Smart arse, what would he know!
Quick dash to co-op for provisions then onto the boat. Immediately out of the marina there was a narrow bridge in which I met another boat coming the other way. As I had no idea what i was doing and may have slept through the briefing, I chose to crash into the side of the bridge whilst swearing loudly. A few kms up the canal we decided we had pushed our luck far enough and moored somewhat short of a bridge (thanks Kathy for the 2km walk) that access to a nearby pub. Safely tied up we alighted and made our way to the pub............which we discovered had burnt down in 2008 and not yet rebuilt and apparently had been mentioned to us in the briefing???? We staggered back and passed out.
Daniel handled the swing bridges with flair and aplomb despite choosing not to utilise the safety barriers.
Monday 28th June day 4
Awoke disorientated and don’t really remember much about this day. We went to Ellesmere and had lunch at the black lion??? Motored up a bit more and had dinner at the Narrowboat Inn?? Where we tied up for the night. Morgan lay on the roof of the boat and guided me along the canal and under bridges with vague wavings of her arms and legs.

Tuesday 29th June day 5
Awoke refreshed, ready for the challenge of the locks. Well almost really. There may have been a little trepidation. Kathy, Daniel and myself observed others operating the locks and decided it was easy as. Cruised through and entered some indescribably stunning landscape. We crossed 2 awesome aqueducts and went through 3 tunnels. One of them 451 metres long.
After cruising through miles of narrow canals we came across a quite expansive area where the canal opened up for a short period just before the fontecillyyeyin aqueduct and decided that it was the perfect place to tie up and find some lunch. So, the stakes were hammered in and ropes tied off and we all made ready to leave for lunch at a local pub. It was then we found out we were moored in a tourist longboat cruise turnaround area. We learnt this from the roar outside the window which was the boat under full power trying to negotiate the water area around us. Anyhow, stiff shit it’s a rental, off to the pub for lunch. Lunch was at a pub called the Aqueduct a little way up the side of the valley were we scored an outside deck table where we enjoyed a few pints overlooking a most spectacular view. Also an excellent vantage point to observe the desperate manoeuvrings of the tour boats around our moored vessel.
After lunch, I might have crashed into another boat. It was parked and I don’t think anyone was on board so I think I might have gotten away with it. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my fault and my family are all liars!
In the evening we moored up a few kms short of Llangollen and dined at the Sun Trevor.
Morgan took out the daily prize with an excellent head butt to the keystone of bridge W8 and chose a role that enabled her to remain below deck for the remainder of the day with ice packs applied to her forehead.
Wednesday 30th June day 6
Arced up Hagar and made short work of the 4 or so miles into Llangllogen. Had a bit of a squiz around the town then set out for the castle on top of the hill. The views were spectacular, the climb up there life threatening.
After an hour or so rest, Kathy, Daniel and myself wacked the sandies back on and went looking for the source of the canal. An hour later we found ourselves standing before a man made garden feature they grandly named Horseshoe Falls. As luck would have it, the Chain Bridge Hotel was located nearby and saw us through our disappointment. We arrived back at the canal boat as darkness was descending around 9:30.