Not a lot going on…

Sorry I’ve not been posting, but I‘ve not had a lot to say, frankly! Oh, Mags says hi… 

We stayed in Trevor basin through the wind, rain snow, sleet and frost we’ve had through the last few days. Although to be fair there were the occasional spells of sunshine.

I had a couple of trips up into Cefn Mawr, mainly for shopping but I also tried to trace the route of the old Plas Kynaston Canal. Without much success, I might add.

The canal led off the basin to the right, here, under that bridge.
The short arm to left is shown covered by a shed of some sort on early 20th century maps, so could have been a boatbuilder or a covered loading area. Information is sketchy, although one of the cargoes regularly loaded here was slaked lime, which had to kept dry. So it could have been constructed for that purpose.
The whole area around the basin was serviced by tramways, on the centre peninsula, now heavily overgrown, and alongside the wharf now used by Anglo-Welsh.




The bridge is blocked and all the remaining length of the canal is filled and has been built over by industry. Ironically that industry has now gone as well.


There was a bridge carrying Queen Street over the channel…

…which doesn’t exist any more.


Then the canal headed north-east for a couple of hundred yards before turning left, south, through the now-demolished chemical works.
That’s a service road in the picture, the canal was up on the left bank.  It finally terminated somewhere behind the Queens Hotel, but I couldn’t find any sign of it.


I mentioned in an earlier post that there’s a proposal to recover this short canal, now that all the industry has gone. What I didn’t realise is that it’s part of a much broader regeneration project.
There was a short item on the scheme on BBC Wales evening news on Monday, which included some video of the basin and the end of the aqueduct. We saw them filming from Tommy 2, one of Jones The Boat’s trip boats, and there was even some brief footage of Seyella!

I went up onto the ridge on Saturday morning, but the accompanying snowstorm didn’t do much for the view!

So Tuesday we pulled out of the basin, threading our way out between the hire boats and crossing the aqueduct again. The sun was low and dazzling as we had to wait till 3 o’clock before the repair work had finished for the day.




It was also very windy, probably the windiest crossing we’ve ever made.

After filling with water at the tap at the south end of the aqueduct we moved on a bit, through Fron Lift Bridge and tied up looking down over the valley.


Heavy showers and gusty winds overnight kept us awake for a while, but the thunder and lightening stayed well over to the south. We pushed on for a half-hour today, getting tied up just short of Whitehouse Tunnel before another band of rain moved in soon after lunchtime.


A casualty of the recent gales, that felled tree looks a bit too tempting, as we’ve moored alongside. Just need the rain to stop for a while…
Tomorrow we’re meeting Richard and Ruth for fuel at Canal View, before toddling on to The Poacher’s for the weekend.

We’ll have the opportunity to extend our cruising range after the weekend, too. The repairs at New Marton Locks are due to finish tomorrow, and the next stoppage at Maestermyn House Bridge doesn’t start until the 19th of February, so we might have a week or two down on the Montgomery Canal before heading back this way before the stoppage is imposed. We’ll see.

Locks 0, miles 2