Date of walk: Monday 17th September 2018
Distance: 7.8 miles / 12.2 km
Time: 3 hours 24 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Link to the walk details
In planning our second walk, I discover a few nifty features on the OS Maps website that I didn’t know about before (having tried the 7-day free trial, we have now paid the £20 for a year’s membership and it is worth every penny). Firstly I can change the route line to be thinner, as the default setting blocked out quite a bit of the map. Secondly I can change the assumed walking pace. OS Maps has a default of 5kph, but we found the timing on the last walk was way off for us. Admittedly we had the dogs with us, which results in us walking at about half our usual speed to allow for the very extensive sniffing and pooping they need to do. Anyway, I have changed the walking pace to 4kph, as I would rather a walk take less time than expected than more.
Our second walk takes us to another country – all the way to Wales, which unfortunately means a rather long day for us. We leave Birmingham at 5.30am and start the drive. We have an electric car so stop to charge at Oswestry services. We arrive at 8.20 and start walking along the canal. We have tweaked this walk in 2 ways. Firstly, we have decided to walk this route in reverse (on purpose this time). And secondly we have chosen to extend the walk slightly. Yes, you read that right, we are so enthusiastic about this ridiculous venture that we are walking even further than required. We start at Chirk Bank so we can cross a country border from England into Wales, and we get to walk across Chirk aqueduct.
We begin and soon cross the aqueduct. The canal is very quiet, just a couple of dog walkers around, but mostly deserted. The scenery and views are truly beautiful and, best of all, it’s really flat. No hill climbing today! It’s also really nice to be partially walking our first National Trail – Offa’s Dyke.
We really enjoy the walk, which ends up taking us around 3 hours and 10 minutes – not too shabby at all. We arrive in Llangollen and have a bite to eat before preparing for our return journey.
In planning this route, we had the challenge of it being linear (rather than circular). I had checked public transport options to get us back to the start, and there was a bus but we wouldn’t be able to take the hounds on it. Then suddenly I had a brilliant idea. Earlier this year, we had made the 100%-not-crazy decision to buy an inflatable canoe that folds up into a backpack. But we hadn’t yet had the opportunity to use it *cue lightbulb moment*. We decided to leave the pups at home (our dog walker would be giving them extra walks to make up for the long day we were away) and bring our canoe. Our packs definitely slowed our progress a little – mine weighed around 8kg and Paul’s was 13kg. But it means we were carrying our transport home with us, which is quite a satisfying feeling.
After lunch, we walk a little further upstream to an area with mooring docks for the barges. We unpack and inflate our canoe, put together the seats and oars, put on our lifejackets, and manage to get ourselves and all our bags into the canoe without capsizing. It’s a very proud moment.
We then begin our canoe trip back from Llangollen to Chirk Bank. The reason for us reversing the journey is that there is a noticeable flow to this canal, and we wanted that to work in our favour. Our poor arms take a real beating as we have never really canoed before – and thought a 14 km route was a good place to start. By this point the canal has filled up and although it is still a very quiet, peaceful place, there are people walking, dogs playing, and more barges than we can count. Everyone says hello, although I can’t work out why they all seem to laugh when they see us. Paul reckons it’s because we’re weird. I like to think it’s because we seem happy 🙂
I read online that a reasonable canoe pace for a moderately experienced canoeist is around 5 kph. As highly inexperienced canoeists, I know our pace will be slower than this. After our first km, my phone helpfully announces that our current pace is 1.5 kph. At this rate, it will take us over 9 hours to get back. We try to pick up the pace a bit, and soon discover that the easiest way to keep us rowing in sync is to sing while we do it. So if you happened to be walking along the Llangollen canal on Monday afternoon, and you encountered 2 weirdos in an inflatable canoe, singing 100 green bottles, you weren’t crazy, that did happen.
We manage to pick up our pace and make it back to the car at around 6.30pm. We pack up, collapse into the car, and manage to drive back home. It’s safe to say we had a brilliant day, but our poor arms and legs are paying for it! We have covered 29 km (18 miles) using pure muscle power.
This was possibly one of the best walks I have ever done, and I really enjoyed it. The canal is a combination of vibrant and lively, and quiet and peaceful. I do love a flat walk, and the scenery was fabulous. I highly recommend this walk (as a walk or a canoe) and can well imagine doing it again in the future. Big thumbs up!
Walking the 100 