Abergavenny, Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, Sharpness and the snow

I guess I cant write this blog without making a note of the snow. All very pretty, but my word it is chilly. What I have just realised is that I have never been to the countryside when it is snowing so I am just loving the white fields and watching the poor sheep and cows trying to keep warm huddled together. Initial pictures of the snow below, guessing that there will be more later.

We have been on a couple of trips, however, with the weather being so cold all I want to do is to stay indoors with a blanket. I hope this winter will not be a long one, I do prefer sightseeing when the weather is nice, rather than sitting in the car with our flask of coffee and sandwiches.

Abergavenny and The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal

Abergavenny is a pleasant market town in Wales and close to the border of England. It is another town which is located in the Brecon Beacons national park. We only took a small stroll through the town and went to the market. It has a nice array of shops of which oddly in the windows of a few were dogs just sitting and staring into the street.

This town is close to the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal so we could not resist a quick visit to a place called Goytre Whalf. The Whalf has a café, a marina and a place where you can hire a boat for holidays. We walked along the canal for a bit and enjoyed the countryside views. I would really love to travel along this canal and made a mental note that this would be a good place to hire a boat for a holiday one year.

This picutre on the left shows platforms into the canal. I have been debating what they are for. My first thought was for fishing, however, I now think that they are for mooring as the canal was rather shallow on the edge, therefore the platforms allows a boat to moor in more deeper waters.

Sharpness

Perhaps an odd location for a day trip, however, I wanted to visit the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. We first when to Saul Junction to view the canal then drove to its start in Sharpness. Sharpness is a dock area and the canal was built to make navigation easier to Gloucester. The canal runs alongside the tidal River Seven. Sharpness was all very bleak and very windy. I was surprised to see two rows of houses in the dock and figured that they could be for the dock workers. I noted a couple of things which interested me (pictures), Firstly the lock was the biggest I have ever seen and huge mooring dollys, just like the canal only bigger. It shows that a good design can be adapted by size no matter how big the boat is..