We happened to be in a holiday house that was right next to the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, we watched the boats silently cruise past (they were mostly all electric) and we had nice evening holiday walks along the tow path. The owners of the house we were staying in suggested a local bike hire place for either mountain biking up welsh mountains or for casually riding along the tow path. The weather forecast suggested super hot weather all week and so we thought a casual ride along the tow path more suited. A quick phone call to the hire shop and everything sorted for the next day.
They delivered the bikes on time for Tom and myself and we set off to Brecon around 15 miles away, taking a spot of lunch and some drinks. The tow path is pretty well looked after and while not a formal cycle way, cycling is permitted with advice to dismount at some of the many bridges due to them being low and the likelyhood of someone either hitting their head as they go through or ending up in the water as they misjudge things. We didn’t have any problems, although both needed to duck for a couple of the bridges.
The weather forecast was correct and at temperatures over 30c we took it slow and got to a flight of docks around lunch time. The canal feels a bit strange as you have to go uphill quite a bit to reach it (our holiday cottage was up some pretty steep and narrow lanes) and there it stays following the contours of the hill as it snakes around. Because of this there are not many locks along the whole length, and the ones that were there seemed to be single boat and single width. We sat and eat scotch eggs while watching the queue of narrow boats taking turns.
The midday sun was pretty intense making it a welcome break when the canal carried on through hillside woods. It didn’t last long and we were back out in the open again looking down from the side of the hill, down at the River Usk which followed the canal sometimes at a distance and sometimes so near that if you were to accidentally ride off the side of the tow path you had the option of falling into the canal oneside, or tumbling down the hill and splashing in the river on the other.
At Llansantffraed we passed a road bridge which blocked the way of the narrow boats coming along. We didn’t see it in action, but it was clear that for boats you needed to get off and press the button at which point the lights would start flashing and a set of road gates would fall and the bridge would open up allowing the boat through. It was only a small single track road but it had a fare amount of cars going over. A notice informed all boats that the bridge could not be operated during school term time at morning drop off and afternoon pick up times. Time it wrong and you would have to wait an hour until the school traffic had passed, there was a cafe though so not a problem and suited the slow life of narrow boating.
We came across similar bridges a couple more times but these were more manual needing a winding key to operate. The first one appeared to just be a drive way going to someones house, this seemed like the ideal house to live in, your own drawbridge! The other was more of a sheep/cow bridge as the canal passed through a farm. The bridge defaulted to be down and so allowing the sheep and cows free passage, boats would have to wind the bridge up. I’m not sure how you would go about stopping the sheep and cows, now flashing lights or barriers this time and I don’t think the animals would take too much notice if there was.
A lot of the canal was all about lime kilns, of which we passed one of two remains of. Likewise, the first railways in the world were built to get the raw materials down from the hills and to the kilns, infact the world’s longest railway used to go up to Hay-on-Wye. Everything powered by horse on special ‘L’ shaped tracks to keep the wheels of the carts in place. The tramways coming off the hills through the valleys to the canal were treated as part of the canal and in doing so made purchasing land simpler. No passengers were carried (officially) and when steam and standard gauge came along everything changed and like in a lot of places the train company bought the canal company and turned bits of it into much faster railway.
We cycled over Brynich aqueduct, passed the last lock and into Brecon. A bit of an anti-climax as there was just an art centre (which did have a small cafe which was handy) but nothing much else. We bought cold drinks and once ready made the return trip back – stopping a couple of times for more cold drinks.
Number of miles: around 30
Number of low bridges: lots