Chirk

The road to Chirk was a fast one, primarily on motorway and dual carriage ways.
We had promised ourselves on our previous trip up to to Manchester two years ago that we would return here to cycle along the Llangollen Canal.
We cycled into Llangollen along the canal passing over the famous Pontcysylite aquaduct which was busy with sightseers on foot and on canal trips. The canal follows a contour line and the aquaduct passes across the River Dee at an elevation of 130 feet. The pathway beside the canal on the aquaduct is very narrow which Karen found quite intimidating.
The canal passes Llangollen at high level so we locked up the bikes and descended into the town for a look around. Llangollen was quite busy and hosted a number of individual retail shops and crafty shops.
We returned to Chirk following the canal tow path a little further beyond where we joined it in the morning. Karen was a lot more comfortable across the aquaduct on the return journey and then we encountered the first of the famous Telford canal tunnels. We needed to walk our bikes through the tunnel due to reduced headroom, then followed the tow path up to the entrance of the longer Chirk tunnel where we left the path.Read more