Journey's End

JOURNEY'S END - In this week's episode of Waterways Dick takes a break from Rambler and its crew and heads off in his canoe to enjoy a spot of fishing. He catches some perch and roach and carefully returns his prey to the canal. Back on Rambler he takes the wheel and guides the hull through green countryside on a ribbon of brown water like a spaceship on a long interplanetary mission. At Mosstown Harbour Dick disembarks to visit the Corlea Trackway Visitor Centre. He visits the preserved eighteen metre tocher, a section of the massive wooden roadway built across the bog in the year 148 BC. Noel Carberry shows Dick the fascinating bog vegetation surrounding the centre including some carnivorous pitcher plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. Rambler arrives at a junction, the first since they've left Dublin. It's the junction with the branch line of the canal that serves Longford town, or it used to. The line is still un-restored, blocked by a fresh dam of earth. Dick clambers down to investigate and begins the eight and half kilometre walk into Longford on the bank of the disused canal. He passes a hull like the ancient carcase of a beached whale, the bones exposed as the flesh is pecked off by the beak of time. Even without restoration the branch line is rather attractive, with a wealth of wild flowers and water-hens croaking away in the sedgy pools that remain. Eventually Dick ends up in the streets of Longford, standing in a car park that was once Longford Harbour. Back on Rambler she’s going better and seems impatient to shoulder her way out of locks, to get each bridge behind her, straining to make ground under the wide midland skies. At Kilashee Dick decides to pay a visit to Magan's pub for a pint. He meets brothers Dan and Mike Magan who's family own the pub and house. This is half pub and half museum and amongst the fascinating Guinness log books is collection is a pile of letters an