On our second day out with Grizzly's cousin, Polar drove us all west to Wales, to see a very special place on the canal network - the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It is on the Llangollen Canal, which Polar and Grizzly have been along in Uppie, but before we joined their crew.
We arrived at a place called Trevor (or Trefor, to use the Welsh spelling) and had a lovely walk alongside the canal to the café and visitors' centre, where Hanley Bear found one of his favourite Transport Trust red wheels.
The information on it was in Welsh and English, so we bears now know what the Welsh for aqueduct is, and how to spell Pontcysyllte properly!
We watched as a couple of boats cruised out onto the aqueduct. We could see that, on one side, there was a good towpath with railings to stop humans or human cubs falling off (although they were too far apart to make it safe for small bears) but, on the other side, there were no railings at all!
Polar said that if we promised to be very good bears, we could go across it with her, in the bear bag, and look down into the valley below, so we all climbed aboard and tucked ourselves in snuggly.
Peeping over the edge, we could see the River Dee, but it was a very, very long way down and we were scared! People walking towards us must have wondered why Polar's bag was shaking - it was because it was full of trembling small bears!
On the far side, Polar found a path that went right underneath the aqueduct and took us to where we got a good view of the trough the boats were in and the side with no railings.
We were allowed out of our bag very quickly, for a photograph, but I had to make sure the smaller bears stayed away from the edge and we were all glad to be safely back in our bag for the return journey. We didn't know if we would like to cross in a boat, unless we were safe inside or in the cratch. We wouldn't want to be on the roof, especially if it was a breezy day.
As she carried us back to Grizzly and his cousin, Polar showed us a strange thing. There is a little handle that opens a plug to let all the water out of the aqueduct, when it needs to be repaired or checked. It is bolted closed to stop humans, human cubs or curious small bears from tampering with it!
When we got back to the visitor centre, I found more to read about the history of the aqueduct, and we saw there was a trip boat that went across and back again. It had tables and chairs and people on board were drinking tea and eating cake. Our small tummies started rumbling.
But we wouldn't be hungry bears for long! Polar drove us all to Llangollen, where we had the most delicious Victoria sandwich sponge cake. We all cheered when Grizzly said we were going for a train ride too.
While we waited, we did some climbing on the vintage luggage, which is something we always do when we visit heritage railways. We think that is why it is on the platform - to keep small bears occupied while they wait for their train.
I had just scrambled to the top of an old milk churn when Hanley Bear called out that the train was coming.
'Don't get left behind!' he warned me, but Polar quickly gathered us all into our bag, and Grizzly found a compartment for us to sit in.
When we were here before, for Grizzly's birthday, it was dull and rainy, but this time we had glorious sunny weather and great views of the river and the mountains.
We got tiny gritty pieces of coal called 'smuts' in our fur, because we had the window open so we could listen to the sound of the engine, but we brushed them out quickly so Polar wouldn't think we needed baths when we got home.
Grizzly bought some beer to enjoy on the journey. When the humans got out to watch the engine run round the train, we had a sip each, but Hanley Bear had an extra sip and got caught.
Luckily for him, the humans thought he was only pretending to drink the beer, so he wasn't in trouble.
When we got back to the station, it was time to go home again. Polar, who had not had any beer, drove us back through east Wales and into Shropshire, where we stopped for our evening meal in Wrenbury, at a nice pub beside the canal.
We bears thought the Llangollen Canal looked like a great place for a cruise and we hope our human guardians might take us there next year, if we are good bears.
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