Return to England

 Monday 

22 July 

Day 22

74 to go

We managed a leisurely lay in this morning, before it was all stations go. We checked on details for where we were heading to, packed up all of our things and then headed on down the wet road, our path set for the UNESCO Heritage structure, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, 1 hour 45min east. 

The road took us back through high country that was once again shrouded in misty cloud. We weren’t sure if it was truly raining or just a soggy cloud we were driving on through. It was a shame that it was so clouded in, as the view we had was good, but you could just tell that it was special. 

We reached Llangollen, the town before the aqueduct. We stop in, but it looked pretty. There was even a horse pulling a canal boat, as we drove through. You can walk to the aqueduct from this town, but we chose to drive through to Trevor and check it out from there. 

We parked up and made our way to the top of the aqueduct. Here we could see many canal boats    and people waiting to board them for a tour. We weren’t going on a boat, choosing to walk over the top of the aqueduct on the path beside the canal. There were plenty doing the same. It made it challenging, as there was no railing on the water side, so a false move and you were in the canal. It was a very impressive structure, being built by Thomas Telford in 1805. He was also responsible for the the suspension bridge at Conwy Castle, so he was in demand. 

After completing our walk, we stopped at the Chapel cafe for a hot chocolate and we ate our lunch on a bench outside. Refuelled, we were ready to tackle the next part of our journey, returning to Hitchin, only 4 hours to go. 

The journey was pretty mundane, major highways with plenty of traffic. We skirted Wolverhampton and Birmingham, came in through Northampton and soon we were arriving in Hitchin, glad to unfurl from the car and stretch out. 

We unpacked all of our things, chatted with Chell and took a breather for a while, before we decided to walk into town and buy a, all day train ticket for London tomorrow (35 pounds each!) and then get our dinner at a local pub. It was good to get a walk in. 

We returned to Chells with full bellies, ready to rest up, as we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.