Diana and Brian's Holidays: pencelli (again)

Well last night we had two good meals in The Royal Oak so we are back tonight.
Set off a little later this morning and actually picked a bad time, half an hour ether way would have been better. Just on the bend from our mooring is a staithe with slipway and winding hole, when we came back this afternoon there was a trailer full of canoes there.

Then the first obstacle of the day, a crank up lift bridge needing about 70 turns, we now had another hire boat right up our bum, so Diana lifted the bridge and they dropped it.

About half a mile passed this I could see something in the water ahead so pulled over as the hire boat behind came shooting round the bend. It turned out that a culvert under the canal is blocked so they are laying a big hose across the canal on the canal bed to pump the water around the obstruction. As you can see the canal is less than waist deep. Once they had got the hose to sink and a few sandbags on it we were on our way.
The other day I mentioned the weight limitation signs on bridges, this bridge still has both of its signs. The boat following is just the other side of the bridge after crawling all over my stern when I dropped to tick-over passed moored boats. You can just see his bows.

I think the poor chap with the strimmer had lost the will to live by here, his machine is laying on the bank and he had gone for a sit down.

I have no idea how large our water tank is on here but I bet we use 5Lt every time we flush the loo, I am glad I don’t have one of those toilets fitted on Harnser. Because of this we are topping the tank up every day, so as I pulled over the guy behind was away. Unfortunately there was another boat on the water point so I had to wait for him to finish.Behind the towpath is this iron, I would say paddle, that was part of the drainage system of the canal.

Full of water we were on our way, but 500 yards ahead is a lock and the boat ahead was in it. Now these locks take about 20 minutes to cycle and after he had ascended we had to turn it, not only that once we left we had to drain it again and leave the bottom doors open, so a good half hour. The lock is immediately after a road bridge, and it the walls of the bridge are these square holes. There is exactly the same for the full length of the tunnel we came through yesterday, so I am guessing they were to support the former to brick the arch of the roof on.

I am surprised the lock is not a SSSI with the amount of growth on the bottom gates.Its probably all that is holding the water in.

No more hold ups all the way into Brecon Basin passing this imposing building on the way with it’s central gable end pointing towards the canal which houses a large bell.

We also passed this tramway wagon from a quarry being pulled by a wooden horse.

There were two or three hire boats moored both in the main basin and just outside. There was one private boat moored slap bang central to one of these boxes and an electric hire boat just ahead of it, I hope his lead was long enough.

In the basin I spun the boat round, and I mean that, dead slow forward, tiller hard over and round she went, no three or thirty three point. The basin is , in my opinion, very attractive with the Theatre one side and cottages the other, there are day boats available for hire at the very end.

Just outside the basin is a row of new houses and they all have Swift Boxes built in, from what we observed the local Sparrows think they are ideal.

We were now retracing our steps, I timed how long it took us to do Brynich lock from the time we stopped above until the time we left, it was 18 minutes, going up takes longer. We then came to Brynich Aqueduct crossing the River Usk a modern concrete structure.

I think it was near here that I spotted what I think may be a mile post, I saw another earlier somewhere.

It has been an absolute cracking day weather wise, warm and clear, you could see for miles.

A little later at Stone House Bridge just before where the temporary pipe has been laid across the canal a Cambrian Cruiser hire boat who had just set off met a wide beam Cambrian Cruiser hire boat coming out of the bridge hole, to add the the problems there were two more Narrowboats right behind the wide beam, we just pulled in and held the boat on a rope until they sorted themselves out.

From here it was a short run through the windup bridge back to the Pencelli moorings, we had just tied up close in front of a boat that had left a git gap when 12 kids in canoes came by with one instructor he looked in total control coming almost up the back.