The lack of light accentuated the echoes of our paddle strokes making it feel eerie, though at over 450m long it did give some real meaning to the saying “there’s light at the end of the tunnel”. Upon our exit we were immediately crossing the Chirk Aqueduct and while not as spectacular as Pontcysylite, the arches stretching both above and below of the Viaduct running in parallel, added drama to the scene to create the perfect climax and close the day of play.
The Only Way is Essex Bridge
We start and finish our final leg of this story at the Essex Bridge, not because it was the inspiration for Tolkien’s mythical Middle-Earth in Lord of the Rings, it’s just the only waterway I know where you can paddle as far as you like and yet get back to the van without retracing your steps or battling the flow of water. That may seem impossible when I inform you we were travelling at six knots down the river Trent without the effort of paddling, but as the boys from Boardwise were to show us, there were many places along the nine miles where we could jump out and paddle back along the canal.
To be honest this is almost too good to be true, with arms still aching from the previous days we were happy to let the river take the strain while we took in the views. This is a SUP guide’s paradise as each twist in the river brings a new story to be told. You really don’t get more diverse backdrops than the Queen’s official photographer Lord Litchfield’s stately home and the Drakelow power station.
