The afternoon of the 4th day, after we traversed the Ellesmere tunnel, we arrive at Ellesmere. Ellesmere is a town of about 4000, and I knew that it had a grocery store and a laundromat. At this point we had used four of our ten days and were only ½ way to LLangollen or ¼ of our round trip. We might be able to make it all the way to LLangollen (and through the Chirk Tunnel and across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct) but it would take long days and not be much fun. We decided to spend two nights in Ellesmere. This would give us time go to the grocery store, do our laundry, explore the town a bit, and otherwise recover. Then we would to return to Middlewich in a very leisurely manner such that we would end each day in the early afternoon near a pub; Dusty Miller, Whitchurch, Old Barbridge Inn, Badger Inn, and finally back at Middlewich. So that is what we did and it worked out nicely.
Ellesmere was the headquarters for the company that built the canal. Right on the canal is the building in which Thomas Telford and lived and worked during the construction of the canal. Thomas Telford was an early civil engineer who was the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He became known as the Colossus of Roads””. We will encounter him again in Wales. The maintenance shops for the canal are also in Ellesmere, they are again in use. Other buildings are not. Ellesmere is famous for the “meres”, these are shallow glacial lakes with neither an inflow nor an outflow, but are fed by ground water.
Ellesmere has a big Tesco, a nice bakery, and shop with both meat and local cheeses. So we were able to start back with plenty of groceries. Much of which we ended up not needing because we were able to have a main meal each day at a pub. We had dinner the first night in Ellesmere at the Red Lion. During dinner we asked about a place for breakfast, we were pointed at a small establishment where one of the waitresses worked in the mornings. On returning from the Red Lion we stopped at a newsstand (tobacco, liquor, magazines, and miscellaneous). We perused the magazines, I always find British magazines more interesting the American; Fishing magazines, both sport fishing and coarse fishing, air rifle magazines, and so on. The horticultural wives bought gardening magazines. My wife spent the rest of the trip lusting after the gardening classes. I bought a bottle of scotch and notebook to keep a log on the return journey.
The canal tow path is much used by joggers, dog walkers, and walkers. The next morning on our way to breakfast we got into conversation with an elderly couple (more elderly than us) who had lived in the area during the Blitz. The told of how they had to leave their homes during bombing raids for fear of thatch on the roof catching fire. I don’t remember why this was more important than worrying about being hit by a bomb!
We had breakfast at the establishment recommended the night before. You ordered at the counter for a “full English Breakfast” (eggs, a slice of bacon, a banger, beans, a slice of tomato, a wedge of hash browns, and a slice of blood sausage) while specifying how slices of toast you wanted. The bacon is more like “Canadian” bacon than American bacon. Blood sausage is in a class all of its own! The hash browns were similar to what you get a McDonalds.
After breakfast we found the laundromat. Marcia gave Schuyler extensive instructions (my wife figured that I was already trained) and the women took off to explore and the men spent the morning doing laundry. The washers and dryers took 1 GBP coins. And as is usual at the laundromat the dryers needed a lot of them. There were four people doing laundry and they were all male! Schuyler and I each brought our laundry in a wheeled bag. My bag has big wheels. Pulling a bag along a tow path and then over cobbled streets demonstrates why “spinner” bags have no place off the beaten path!
Some pictures are at: https://goo.gl/photos/UzXb1e3GEhhNGMaTA