The Back Cabin

Hi,

This episode is going to be a bit of a mixture,we’ve got photo’s of Chyandour with her back cabin partly fitted out after the last time we saw her on Wednesday 16/05/12,some more photo’s taken by John and Mick on Friday 25/05/12,and a few photo’s of our recent holiday on the Llangollen & Montgomery canals on Kingfisher,a Traditional style  narrowboat,from  http://www.bettisfieldboats.com/index.html.

After we set off off on our journey back home on Wednesday the 16th John and Mick at http://www.kingfishernarrowboats.co.uk/ continued fitting her out,so here are a couple of photographs that they took of Chyandour on Friday the 18th.

The one on the left is the framework that I mentioned on our last blog,that will support the back cabin floor.The photo’ on the right is the bulkhead between the back cabin and the bedroom,the space to the left is where the steps down into our boat will be.

The following pictures are the ones I’ve pinched from John and Micks build blog on their website,If you care to check it out you will get a few more photo’s and a better description of their efforts.These were taken on the 25th.

        

The one on the left shows the steps taking shape,there will be a small amount of storage beneath each one.The picture on the right is where the control panel and engine controls will be fitted.We will stand in the hatchway and be able to hold the tiller and reach the controls as necessary.

Now that brings us to our holiday on Kingfisher (strange how that name keeps cropping up),on the Llangollen and Montgomery canals.We’ve been on the LLangollen before but this was our first time on the Montgomery.Both are beautiful canals,with excellent views and,of course the famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.We started off from Bettisfield on Saturday the 19th,and it was cold enough for us to have the central heating on in the evening,but,by the Monday,the temperature had shot up and we were in a heatwave.We got to Llangollen by the Sunday evening,having crossed both aqueducts,the unpronounceable one and the Chirk.Here’s a couple of pictures.

The one on the left is our approach onto the Chirk aqueduct with the tunnel at the far end and the railway viaduct to the left.The picture on the right is of the Pontcysyllte with the towpath on the left,the canal in the middle,and the sheer drop of 120 feet to the right.Trust me,it isn’t a bad experience,and as far as I know,no-one has gone over in 200 years 

Below are a couple of pictures we took while on the Montgomery for a couple of days.

The one on the left is the Pound between two of the locks on the Frankton flight ,you can see the garden of a house next to the pound and one of the locks is in the centre.The picture to the right is part of the canal.The ones below are of the LLangollen.

The left hand one is a view you get from the Pontcysyllte and the right hand one is looking east after the Chirk aqueduct,the railway viaduct is in the distance.I just had to include the pictures below,the left one doesn’t really require an explanation,just to say that it was in a garden on the offside of the Llangollen just before the junction with the Montgomery at Welsh Frankton,heading west.The right one was of a bat,asleep,clinging to a fence post in the middle of the day,as we walked along a footpath on our way back from a walk we did near Llangollen Town.We walked along the unnavigable stretch of the canal to its source as a feeder for Hurleston  reservoir,called Horseshoe falls,and then followed the footpath signs to Valle Crucis Abbey.It was as we were returning that Lisa saw the bat.

       

And finally two pictures of Kingfisher,she’s a lovely boat for two,with everything you could want on board,and she was spotlessly clean,a real credit to Nick and Emma,the owners.

On our last evening we moored opposite the services at Ellesmere and decided to walk into town for a little liquid refreshment,purely to prevent dehydration you understand,when we saw,moored on the arm,Cats Whiskers.She is the boat that had the buildslot prior to ours at Kingfisher.It was a very pleasant surprise to see Rodger and Pat and we just had to have a glass or two,just to be sociable of course.You can view their blog on http://thecatswhiskersnb.blogspot.co.uk/. All in we had a truly exceptional holiday,the weather improving from the Monday onwards was the icing on the cake.We will be back to these canals again in a few years,but there are so many we want to see it will be a while.It will be three months until we are back afloat again but we have the build on Chyandour to enjoy in the meantime.

That’s all for now,we are going to see Chyandour on Monday the 28th so there should be enough material to do an update next weekend.