Carbohydrate neutral exercising

Watching my tenth large backside and thighs plod up the footpath, why, I asked Starwoman, are so many walkers somewhat, well, stoutly built? All that exercise should surely be good for their figures.
Simple, she replied. They go for a long walk, work up an appetite and so they call at the pub where they demolish several pints and a large portion of pie and chips.
It's what we call carbohydrate neutral exercising. Burn off some carbs and then replace them.

On the history trail

Telford's weir was stop one on our Llangollen History Trail, a six mile scenic walk taking in the 12th century castle ruins high on the hill overlooking the town and due to take up to six hours according to the leaflet.
The towpath walk to the weir was the easy bit; after that it was almost entirely uphill. Steeply uphill. Next came Llantysilio Church, charmingly set within an evocative graveyard of Joneses and Evanses.
But what of the church itself? It would have been easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a fat person to enter Llantysilio Church. The door would open little more than a crack - presumably to prevent anyone disappearing with the "rare medieval oak eagle lectern". Fortunately Starwoman and me have not been at the chips too often and slipped inside to view a simple but atmospheric interior.
From here we followed the signs up Velvet Hill which "gets its name from the soft texture of the sheep cropped grass and moss". Of which there was none to be seen. Nor any more waymarkers. Just ferns. When the path split, we were lost, as were two other walkers and only the arrival of a third walker, relying on an OS map rather than a guide, put us straight and back on route to Valle Crucis Abbey.
Once it was the second richest abbey in Wales after Tintern. Today the ruins are smothered in a huge camping and caravan site. A great way to treat our heritage, eh. And the signs ran out again.
We followed our noses uphill and, as we climbed steeply out of the trees and ferns a superb view of surrounding hills came into view. But we were more than two hours in and Dinas Bran castle still looked depressingly distant. And much higher. Brian, uninspired by the prospect of exploring a 12th century ruin, was walking to rule now - even after being fortified by dog biscuits and water. Still, we plodded on, and finally, there was the fingerpost pointing to a path zig-zagging up a steep, steep slope to our goal.
But, boy, was that last mile slow! I don't think I'm ready for Everest base camp yet - this one was struggle enough. But the views were staggering. Way to the east we could see the Newbridge railway viaduct and the road bridge across the valley - both of them far beyond the Pontcysyllte aqueduct - though that was hidden in the trees. And out to the west were the high hill tops of Snowdonia.
Brian decides his body double will tackle the next hill walk

We headed down the short route back to town. And Brian, curiously, was a dog instantly revitalised pulling hard at the end of his extending lead.

The end of the beginning

The Llangollen canal basin isn't quite the end of the canal; the last two miles are only navigable either by one of the horse-drawn trip boats or on foot.
The real end - or to be more accurate, the real beginning - is an anonymous looking stone shed from beneath which gurgles the canal's feed from the River Dee. The shed houses a pump which now pushes thousands of gallons of water daily down the canal to a huge reservoir at Hurleston down at the far end.
Beyond the pump house is another of Telford's master strokes, a semi-circular weir which he built to corral the waters of the Dee and separate enough to feed his fledgling canal. Too much, according to local millers, whose river powered mills struggled with the sudden drop in water supplies.

Bringing and buying

Llangollen was heaving with visitors this morning, and a curious mixture they were too of serious hill walkers, ice-cream eating day trippers and skinny, flip-flop clad youths who'd look more in Newquay. The shops are the same: you can buy everything from tea towels and candy floss tourist tat to 'natural foods' to boots and rucksacks.
Vicky was disappointed though: there's no Llidl in Llangollen!
We dumped off a bookshelf load of previously enjoyed paperbacks at a local charity shop and re-stocked with a couple more. Then I re-stocked my innards with a substantial Welsh lamb oggie (lamb mince, leek and potato in flaky pastry) courtesy of James Bailey, purveyors of the finest heavy duty cholesterol. Their large jam doughnuts are the size of footballs! But after putting away my oggie I had to admit defeat and save my vanilla and cream slice in the fridge for another time.
That time will probably be this afternoon when we return from a six mile walk to Horseshoe Falls, source of the canal, and up to the ruins of Dinas Bran castle high on a 1000ft hill overlooking the town.

Brian the Sun Dog's new throne

Our Brian is keener on sunbathing than a St Tropez starlet. Usually he grills himself gently on the tug deck but this morning the sun was shining through the engine room hatch so....

Walking the watery plank

An impossibly narrow shimmery pencil line of water stretches out across the sky. Even the presence of a few tourists on the towpath cannot stop me catching my breath and giving a gulp of anticiption before setting off across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
It's ludicrously narrow - inches wider than the boat and on the non-towpath side the water laps a foot below the top of the iron trough we're travelling along and were I to take a small step sideways from the helm, there isn't the merest thread of a guardrail to separate me from the 126 feet drop to the Dee Valley below.
Along the 1000 ft aqueduct I gaze down at a football pitch below, a sewage works on the other, the wide, rushing River Dee and off to either side at the wonderful, distant views.
What an engineering masterpiece this is. We're travelling on a structure build over 200 years ago, in sections of cast iron trough joined together with seals that still don't leak and build under Thomas Telford's direction in just ten years by manual labour alone under the gaze of people who said it could never be done.
An unforgettable experience!

Rydym wedi cyrraedd

"We have arrived". That's what the Welsh title means - according to Google at any rate. And we have arriverd: we're sitting in the Llangollen canal basin right at the end of the canal.
It wasn't a long journey to get here today - but it was a memorable one. In 12 miles we had two locks, some extremely narrow sections, oh, and a couple of aqueducts.
The first of these, at Chirk, would be considered world class - a rugged stone structure whose impressive appearance is only backed up by the railway viaduct behind it. Unfortunately Chirk is, to use a topical metaphor, the Andy Murray of aqueducts and just down the road is the Rafael Nadal in the shape of the unique and mind blowing Pontcysyllte. But that is another story.For now a quick run down on the journey pre and post Ponte.
We started deep in Welsh/English border countryside. Ironically I'd realised the previous evening that we were just a mile away from Welsh Frankton, the home village of Phil Llewellyn, a late and much lamented motoring journalist chum. How entertaining it might have been to wander up to his door and be invited in by a beaming, ever jovial Phil. Then to stagger back, many whiskys later! Ah well, enough of that.
The first two locks for 20 miles (and the last on the canal) were s0on despatched and we headed on along a canal that mixes open stretches with nadgery twists and turns where bridges are usually hidden - and hire boats too. It's shallow in places but never impossible, though woe can betide you if you venture too near the edges.
The canal beats a rather secretive path around the edges of a high, steep valley and it's only when you glimpse the Looming Chirk aqueduct through the trees that you realise the scale of the achievement in getting a waterway here at all.
The aqueduct is a sturdy structure and despite its height above the valley one can potter across without a moment's anxiety. And 'potter' is the word for progress is slow across its shallow, silted channel.
The we were through the 450 yard Chirk tunnel - one-way and narrow like all the Llangollen tunnels with walls that threatened to bash the cabin sides. Another tunnel, another miles, a liftbridge and then we were at the Ponte.
Over that and we were in the mayhem of a hireboat logjam; three of them waiting to cross the aqueduct and the small arm we'd thought of mooring in choked with more. Steak pie at the Trevor Inn will have to wait until the way back. So we turned left and took the narrow, shallow channel to Llangollen.
I've been in narrow and I've been in shallow but rarely one so narrow and so shallow that at times we could barely move forwards and Vicky walked ahead to warn any oncoming craft to wait for us to come through.
The last half mile into the town is rightly famous - a concrete channel barely wide enough to be a storm drain runs between cottages and looks down on the town below before reaching the wharf and, finally, the mooring basin.