The Hodma'dod: A tale of two cities

The journey up to Market Bosworth was fasinating with some very unusual bridges (see below) and a very narrow part of the canal chanelled out of a very rocky area.

We duly arrived at Market Bosworth and found a good mooring near the town but were most disappointed in the town itself. There were a few attractive buildings but basically it had the air of a rather faded, run down town. On the Sunday I took the dogs for a walk over what I thought would be some quiet country but got closer and closer to loud motorcyle engines revving to eventually realise that there was a motor cycle scramble going on. So once I finished the walk I went back to have a look and spent a couple of hours enjoying watching other people getting very dirty.

We moved on on Monday (after buying yet another bag of dog food) through 5 locks and stopped for the night near the village of Adderley Decided to stay there for the day and had a wander up to the village which was nothing special and then moved on on Wednesday to the 15 lock flight leading into Audlem. We had a good run through the locks with plenty of boats going the other way which helped getting the locks set without too much work and stopped after 11 locks for the night and went for a meal in the Shroppie Fly, a pub converted from an old warehouse on the quay side with a bar built like a narrowboat - sounds a bit twee but an alright meal and good beer. Fly in this context refers to fast boats which were used to carry perishable goods and other urgent cargos and used to run 24 hours a day with different crews.

On the following morning we set off to go through the other 3 locks in the flight and then after passing the secret nuclear bunker at Hack Green (Seems a bit strange to call it secret when there are large signs advertising its presence) two more before mooring up at Nantwich. After Market Drayton our expectations were not high for this town but that was a mistake. It really is a very attractive town with a pedestrianised shopping centre, lots of good independant stores, very clean and very attractive 16th century buildings. Could certainly live there.

We had decided earlier in the week on a change of plan. We had spoken to a number of boaters who had come back from the Llangolen all saying how crowded and difficult it was so we have decided to leave that for another day when we can go out of season and will now be going on to Chester and Ellesmere Port. So Friday saw us pass the junction with the Llangollen and moor at Barbridge Junction where the Shroppie main line meets the Middlewich branch. Moored opposite a pub which went down dramatically in our estimation when they wouldn't allow the dogs in although the guide book says they are dog friendly. I suspect they have had a makeover since the book was wriiten but the beer and the wine were not really very special either.

Saturday saw us continuing north and on to Tiverton a lovely rural mooring with very moor like land opposite with sheep grazing. Made us think we really were getting into the wilds. The ruins of Beeston Castle tower over the area and some large earth works we saw we thought were something to do with it until reading the information board we found there were to do with PLUTO - Pipeline under the ocean - apparently another "secret" location this time for mass storage of oil during the second world war. It seems that the powers that be consider this part of the Uk to be very remote and unlikely to attract any enemy's attention.

Sunday: starting in the inevitable cloud burst saw us going through three more locks to moor up at the Cheshire Cat in Christelton on the outskirts of Chester. Worthy of note is the fact that one of the locks we came through was made of iron rather than the usual brick or stone. This was due to the problems they had with land subsidence but although the lock still functions it has become out of true due to the movement of the ground and although large enough to take two boats the advice is to only have one at a time in the lock to avoid snagging.

Tomorrow we plan to go into Chester and moor there perhaps for a night or two to explore the town and then on to Ellesmere Port.