Another beautiful bright morning.  It’s worth getting up early before other boats are moving.  The canal water is smooth and reflective and the only sounds are of the wildlife, soon to be joined by Oliver’s “burble”.

We spotted a couple of slightly unusual but interesting sights.  The first was a hot air balloon peacefully floating in the still morning air and the other was a Tilley hat peacefully floating along the canal.  It was probably feeling poorly, it certainly looked quite green!

Our first lock took an hour to get through because there were 3 boats in front of us all going up and 3 others coming down.  Two of those going up had never been in a lock before and did not seem to have had much instruction.

The greatest entertainment came after we had stopped at Chirk Bank.  We decided to buy diesel  from the fuel boat when he came by our mooring and he confirmed other boats had room to pass.  Unfortunately the first to arrive lacked confidence and held back.  Several boats stopped behind him, including one under the bridge and then several more came from the opposite direction.  It turned into the biggest jam we saw during our entire adventure.

In the evening we walked into Chirk and visited the church where there was an unusual and interesting fairly modern stained glass window.  We had an early dinner at the Hand Hotel before strolling around the town.  We then spent some time enthralled by the smoke from Mondelez belching out in large chocolatey smelling clouds.  As we did not have a torch we decided to walk along the road, rather than through the tunnel.  We then went across the aqueduct and followed the towpath back home to Oliver.