Lancaster

After a nice big bed last night, we left Hoylake and headed for Liverpool. We didn’t take the “ferry cross the Mersey”, but the tunnel under the Mersey, so at least there was no issue about “don’t pay the ferryman ‘til he gets you to the other side.”

We managed to find our way to the Albert Dock, a very vibrant, attractive, reinvigorated dock area with many coffee shops, cafes and tourist kitsch shops around 3 sides of the basin. As we entered the Dock, we stopped at a display of owls by Lord of the Wings, a small rescue/conservation organisation. There were 5 or 6 owls and when we showed a lot of interest and asked a lot of questions, the man asked if we wanted to hold one. Well, we couldn’t let that go. The owls were so gentle and soft. We spent about 3/4 hour there.

We saw an amazing mosaic, in a confectionary shop, of The Beatles, using over 15,000 jelly beans.

After coffee and a walk around the Dock, we found our way out of Liverpool (you can see that we really had a good look at Liverpool), and we drove around the coast through Southport. The tide was out and we could only just see the water, the ground was so flat.

We set the GPS for somewhere north, but were distracted when we saw a sign to the West Lancashire Light Railway. The line is only 400 metres long and there are about 150 members/volunteers. The railway was set up by a few 16 year old school boys. One of their father’s (I think) owned the brickworks and offered some land for the railway construction and it developed from there. Of course we had to help their running costs by having a ride on the train. Gary & Rick had a foot plate ride (in the engine with the driver) and rode with the guard (one each way). The railway has a a few engines, one of them was built in England and shipped to France (with another 66) to transport troops, machinery etc in WW1. Others have been used in quarries and mines. 2 foot gauge and very small locos. We had 2 rides, but weren’t allowed any more because we had to move on.

From the train, we used “big” roads to move quickly north and stopped in Lancaster for the night. We tried a few pubs before we found a Travelodge that had rooms. We could save £10 by booking on line, so we paid to use Travelodge’s internet computer to book. Their system wouldn’t accept a debit card and the staff behind the counter told Gary that an Australian credit card would hold the booking and then we could pay however we like. Didn’t work did it. Gary’s credit card was charged straight away, so there were credit card fees, an even worse exchange rate than when we changed many months ago and just a little frustration this end because of the poor booking system. It turned out that we could have rung and booked for the same price, in hindsight that would have been much more efficient. We could cancel and rebook, but we wouldn’t get a refund. We had issues at home before we left trying to book one of the other sites.

Anyway, a glass of wine calmed us down and the blog is almost ready to post.