Tuesday 24 September 2013

North Yorkshire Moors and Wales



I've been having trouble with my computer lately, so this is a bit of a catch up post.

Last weekend we went to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway which is a small preserved line running steam trains.  My husband prefers diesel to steam and that weekend they had brought in old diesel trains for a special event.   Not being a train enthusiast myself, I went along with the intention of walking between some of the stations while he rode about on the trains, but we ended up doing both together and I really enjoyed it.



If you want to see what the inside of a driver's cab is like, this is me in one (the driver is a friend of my husband)




One of the stations is at Goathland where Heartbeat was filmed.



Some of the shops still have their Aidensfield signs and there are old vehicles from the series.







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This weekend I went to the Llangollen canal in Wales with my daughter and her friend to see the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, which is a World Heritage site.  
We caught the train to Chirk where there is a smaller aqueduct, with a viaduct alongside it


The canal goes through a really long tunnel (421 metres).  We could see the daylight at the other end which made us think it wasn't that long and a boat was coming through from the other direction with it's lights on so it wasn't too dark, but when it had gone past it was pitch black!  Luckily my daughter's got a torch on her phone so it wasn't too scary.
Here's the boat, taking it's light with it!



Pontcysyllte  aqueduct is the largest one in Britain at 1007 ft long and 126 ft high and was built in 1805.  It's hard to show in a photo just how high it is, and it's only the width of a boat so it must be quite scary to sail over and have nothing at the side.








This is a view from the aqueduct 

At the end of it is Trevor Basin



We were going to walk to the next rail station to go home, but decided to walk back to Chirk so that we could go through the dark tunnel again!  There was another tunnel too but that wasn't anywhere near as long.





6 comments:

  1. Looks like you have been having a great time.

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  2. That aquaduct is an amazing feat of engineering for it's time.......very interesting and great pics Georgia.
    We visited Goathland when we holidayed in the UK In 2007, loved it, but then I'm a die hard Heartbeat fan.

    Claire x

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  3. I love old steam trains and will always choose a visit to a preserved line when you get to have a ride. There's several we get to visit not far from home. Glad you enjoyed your trip.
    Patricia x

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  4. Beautiful photos, LBM! ~ but I'd be scared to walk along that aqueduct! But I'd still walk it scared or not! Take care!

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  5. Your day out on the trains sounded nice. I used to travel to school on the train. We live quite near Chirk. I love Llngollen, Have walked along the tow path but never had a ride on one of the horse drawn barges - sounds another lovley day out.

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  6. Great series of photos. I grew up near a huge train yard in Toronto, and I love them!

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