On to Ellesmere
September 10. 1999. On this day there were no castles, but we were always kept amused by the captain and his wife’s stories of life on the canal. The boat (The Unicorn) was a traveling history lesson, or at least that was the intention that Capt. Jeremy had in mind when he first began his canal adventure. Half the boat was crammed with books. Many were about English history, but there were several that even Roger and I found interesting enough to crack open.
The plan is to make it to the town of Ellesmere, a good 19 miles from our starting point. As we traveled south, the land became flatter, and there were more farms along the canal.We drifted past the towns of Rhoswiel and St. Martins before coming to the New Marton Locks. We passed the junction of the Montgomery Canal and then through the winding section of the canal near the town of Tetchill.
So here we have Roger, Jim, Jeanne and Gloria. Along with Emily, we were the only passengers on the longboat (we planned it that way) . The boat captain was Jeremy who did the navigation and his wife Dorothy who did the cooking and cranking.
Today there was a longboat party in Ellesmere and we passed hundreds of canal boats all decked out for the big party. Since there was no place to park the boat in town, we floated a bit and got off with Dorothy and helped her do some grocery shopping in town. Further down the cut was found a little beach area with a bench near Blakemere Lake where we had a BBQ style dinner with hambergers, sausage, beer and chips. We stayed the night at the lake.