This X marks the spot where the Protestant clerics Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were burned at the stake by Mary 1.

Saturday, 30th August LIVERPOOL

The Ashmolean Museum. Lex and Glen reading the information out front as we wait for it to open.

Oxford may be a university town but many of the students are clearly unable to read and comprehend instructions. Or they have a healthy dose of contempt for rules and regulations?!

If you're s Morse fan, you may recognise this as the site where Morse had his fatal heart attack in "The Remorseful Day", the final episode   :(

Alister, our guide, was a wonderful source of information on Oxford and Morse

Lex with his Italian beer in "Ask Italian". Well, he did ask for a large....

Lots of the pubs around Oxford have Morse connections. He did spend a good deal of time in them!

Robyn writes: Have had a wonderful day - a day among the dreaming spires of Oxford, and two of my all-time favourite detectives! We set the alarm to go off at 7.30 so we could get up and going nice and early - neither of us were impressed when it went off, but we eventually crawled out and started getting organised for the day. First, of course, we headed downstairs for a lovely hotel breakfast, which is included in our hotel room. We had been planning and hoping to be in town in Oxford nice and early, say, 9am, but it was actually around 9.30 before we even pulled up at the Pear Tree Park & Ride carpark just near our hotel. Amazingly, we pulled up right next to Carol and Glen getting out of their car, having just driven up from Leighton Buzzard to meet up with us in the city! So, after a happy reunion, we all paid our car parking (2 pounds for the day) and hopped onto the bus which was waiting to take us into Oxford (just under 5 pounds return). We were all doing this as parking in the CBD there is hideously expensive (4 pounds an hour) IF you can find one! This was by far the cheaper and easier option, and in less than 10 minutes, our bus had us right in the middle of town. We checked to see where we would get our return bus, and times, then set out to explore.


Carol has been to Oxford quite a lot, so she set off to wander around while the rest of us went into the Ashmolean (Art & Archaeology Museum) as soon as it opened at 10. We arranged to meet for the 11am guided tour, then all went off to our favourite galleries for the first hour. I had a lovely time with the European paintings, Glen was rapt in the coin collections and Lex had a general wander around to see what was on offer (many, many galleries of collections). We met for the tour and our guide took us right around, showing us some of the highlights of their collection such as (my favourite) the Alfred Jewel, a beautiful Anglo-Saxon piece of jewellery they think was used as a pointer while reading manuscripts. Lots of beautiful and rare things, so we enjoyed the tour.
When it ended at 12, we headed down into the cafe there to have some lunch - museum food is always a bit pricey but it's generally a nice meal and at least you're supporting them by eating there. After lunch we went back to explore the galleries then I headed off to the Information Centre to meet the tour guide there for the Inspector Morse tour which started at 1.30.


The tour was fantastic - it went for two and a half hours and Alistair, our tour guide, was a font of information on the Morse books and TV series. He knows Colin Dexter, the author, and told us lots of stories about the filming of the Morse, Lewis and now Endeavour series in Oxford. We saw lots of places where they were filmed plus learned a lot of general history and information about Oxford as well. I now think Oxford has the most beautiful city centre I've seen, and that's a big call! Alistair also gave us the thrilling news that recently they've been filming new series of both Lewis and Endeavour in the city, so we were all very happy to hear that.


After the tour ended, I headed back to the Ashmolean to meet up with the others at 4. We went to a little coffee shop around the corner for a cuppa before Glen and Carol headed home. Glen told us that he had seen the Agatha Christie play, 'Black Coffee', advertised at the Oxford Playhouse, so we said our fond farewells to them as they went to line up for the bus back to the Park & Ride, and popped around the corner to check it out. They still had tickets available for tonight's performance at 7.30, so we paid 27 pounds each for tickets in the middle of Row 3. By now it was 4.30 and we had three hours to wait, so we decided we had plenty of time to catch the next bus back, shower and change, and come back into the CBD for tea before the play started.


We went back around the corner to the bus stop where a double-decker bus was waiting and a huge line of people were queuing to get into it - we thought that for sure it would be full and we'd miss out, but amazingly we made it onto the bus and even got a seat! Lex very kindly gave up his to a lady who came on after us, and she turned out to be from the Morse tour, so she and I chatted all the way back to our terminal. We were back at our car in just over 10 minutes and were amazed to see that Carol's car was still parked there...so we waited for the five minutes or so until the huge crowd on the bus finally cleared and Glen and Carol appeared from the top deck. It was worth it to see the looks on their faces when we greeted them with a "Well, what kept you?!" So we bid them farewell again, and headed home to shower and change before going back in around 6pm.


We were lucky again that a bus was there, and this time we were the only passengers on board for most of the trip! When we got back to the city we decided we felt like Italian, so we went to "Ask Italian", where we had a lovely meal - Lex had a vegetable fettucine and I had a lovely pasta carbonara with a side salad. These were accompanied by my Sav Blanc (from NZ - always a safe option) and Lex had a large beer - slightly more than he'd imagined; it was a 660ml bottle of Nastro Azuro which was nice Italian beer but he manfully got through it all! Dessert was lovely - I had the nicest tiramisu I've had in ages and Lex had an apple, plum and pistachio tart. Yum!


After all of this indulgence, it was time for the theatre, so we headed around the corner in plenty of time to find our seats before the play began. Black Coffee is one of the plays written by Agatha Christie for the stage, not adapted from a novel, so I'd never seen it and had no idea 'whodunnit'. It was a great cast with excellent stage setting (beautifully 1930s Art Deco set) and very well acted (though it always seems very strange to see someone other than David Suchet acting Poirot!). Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed it and Lex even picked the murderer. It was a lovely evening out and really nice to get dressed up for a night on the town - we haven't been able to afford much of that on this holiday, but it was a great change! Then off course we headed back around to the bus stop and a bit of a wait for our bus, and we were home by 10.30. A long day, but full of wonderful things :)

Iron bridge...

...at Ironbridge!  Views from both sides of the bridge.

Outside the White Hart, where we had an excellent afternoon tea before forging on.

Friday, 29th August        LIVERPOOL - OXFORD

Robyn writes: What a LOOONNNGG day it's been! We woke this morning around 7ish to a gloomy and rainy Liverpool, and finished our packing / cleaning etc to be ready to head out to get our hire car from Alamo / Europcar by just after 9. We headed off for the Lime Street Car Park, behind Liverpool St Station in Nelson Street (they never give you a number here!). Well, we got to the station easily, but then walked and walked and walked right around it - finally ending up just metres from where we'd started, we found the car park tucked in behind and we'd walked right around the huge city block! Anyway, we found our hire people on the first floor of the car park, and the bloke in charge took us into the station to fix up the hire. Then we had to go back to the car park to pick up the car, and we were finally ready to drive out after 10. Lots of fun then ensued when the satnav went on strike for a while before finally coming good and guiding us back to our building, where we had the car pass code to get in to the underground car park while we loaded our goods. Much better than parking in the street.


We successfully got into and out of the car park with all our belongings loaded into our new little silver hire car, and set out for Oxford, a journey of under three hours. Or so we thought. Firstly, the satnav had another little hissy fit and froze for the first 5 minutes or so. Lex had so much fun driving through busy streets with no idea of where to go! Then it relented, and started giving us directions...except it kept trying to send us the wrong way up one way streets. Finally it came good and enabled us to get out of Liverpool. We were having a great run, and well onto the motorway, when we came to crawling traffic - which crawled along for about 20 minutes. We had the radio on and heard that an accident ahead of us was causing severe delays, so when an exit came up, we took it and headed towards Chester to get us away from the congestion. We actually had decided to have lunch in Chester, so drove into the city looking for a park. Well, we drove and drove, but either couldn't get access to them or they were full, and there wasn't a street park to be held for love or money. After about 15 minutes, we gave up! We headed out of town and after a few miles came across a lovely garden centre with the magical word "cafe" on its sign. We went in there - it was huge, had free parking and toilets and we had a lovely lunch there. Most relaxing. We swung to the south and came around to successfully get back onto the motorway below the accident site, and were on our way once more.


We hadn't been back on the motorway more than a few more miles when more signs came up advising of more severe delays a few exits down the road. So, sigh, once more we zoomed off and around - this time in the general direction of Whitchurch, where we'd been for the canal cruise. Before we got there we headed to the south and then we saw a sign for Ironbridge. This is one place Lex has always wanted to see and we thought had been too far out of the way. I checked, and it was only about ten kilometres away, so we thought, what the heck, and headed for it. It's the first iron bridge ever made in the UK and I think the world, right at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1700s. It's over the Severn River and is still in wonderful condition. The little town of Ironbridge is quite gorgeous - picture postcard perfect and you really can't see any buildings that look less than 200 years old! We had a most enjoyable walk up to, over and under the bridge, then had afternoon tea in a nearby pub. A nice break in what was turning into a big day's travel.


It was nearly four by the time we set off again, and this time we had quite a good run once back on the motorways and heading for Oxford. The dreaded "Delays ahead" sign came up, but we were still a fair way off, and, as Lex pointed out, it didn't say Severe delays, so we crossed our fingers and went on. In the end that problem was gone by the time we got to it, but just in the last 10 km we ran into road works and were reduced to a crawl again. Anyway, we finally got here at about 6.45 - our less than 3 hour trip had turned into a nearly 8 hour day in the car. Blah! After pretty much a dream run on the motorways of Great Britain, we've hit all of our problems on one long and stressful trip! Anyway, we got to see Ironbridge, which was the highlight of the day.


Our hotel, the Oxford, is right on the northern outskirts of the city, so we were quickly here and booked in. We have a very nice room. We were far too tired to think about going out in search of tea, so ate here in the restaurant - really nice food but very pricey and all of the staff had suspiciously French accents (some weren't sustained very well!) Anyway, it was a nice meal. We are now collapsing in a heap and in need of a good night's sleep before we head off to explore the delights of Oxford tomorrow :)

Premier Apartments, where we're staying

Lex outside the library, next to the World Museum

Liverpool has many statues!

This is the memorial to the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, where 96 people died

Thursday, 28th August                 LIVERPOOL

Robyn writes: We spent some time this morning investigating a day trip to Manchester - we'd seen a canal boat trip from here which sounded great....until we discovered there were no more this week. Bugger. Then we looked into off-peak train tickets, which would have been okay, but in the end we couldn't find any bus tours of the city on today, and the boat cruise I found was 30 pounds each for two hours, so in the end we decided to stay put and finish looking at Liverpool!


Our first port of call today was the World Museum, which is just around the corner from us, but in the opposite direction to the river front, so I'd never actually been there. It's in one of the most impressive parts of Liverpool, where there are these beautiful huge old public buildings and monuments all together (miraculously having survived the wartime bombing nearby). The museum has retained the old frontage, but the building behind is much more modern. The original Liverpool Museum was badly damaged in 1941 by bombs and they lost a lot of their collection. But the rebuild is great and works really well, and fortunately they still do have many treasures. Their Egyptian collection is the best we've seen outside of the British Museum in this country - apparently lots of wealthy Liverpudlian Victorians were heavily into Egyptology, and several of their collections have ended up in the museum. It's a real family museum with excellent displays of dinosaurs, space, live insects etc etc, and being school holidays, was packed with children having a wonderful time. Good to see! (I can't wait until Louie is old enough to get into dinosaurs....)


We had lunch in the museum cafe then continued our look around the galleries, before meeting up again and heading over to St George's Hall. This is a huge and beautiful classical building across the road, and we'd been told we must go in and see its glorious interior and ceiling in particular, but alas, there was a formal occasion underway (it looked rather like a debutante ball, perhaps) so we couldn't barge on in! Anyway, we had a good walk around the area and admired the various statues, including Wellington up high on his pedestal, Victoria and Albert on their horses and several other of the Victorian great and good. We've observed that it was very much a Victorian hobby to put up statues of the great and good by public subscription - poor things must have always had their hands in their pockets to contribute to yet another memorial. By now the clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful, sunny day.


Lex wanted to go to another art gallery but I headed home to put my feet up then start the dreaded chore of packing. It was ridiculously hot today - got to 20 degrees! When he got home we organised photos etc, fought (unsuccessfully) with the blog program to try to get it to upload photos, and tried to finish as much packing as possible (at least we both have ports of clean clothes now) then he suggested we go out for tea, as it's our last night in Liverpool. First we went to our 'local', the Ship &  Mitre for a drink. Lex tried one of their many real cask ales on tap. He was impressed. Then we wandered down through the CBD and all around there for a look - another area I hadn't been into. We found a super big Tesco there so popped in to get a few things our local doesn't have, then kept looking for a place to eat. We ended up setting on Tai Pan, a Chinese smorgasbord restaurant with all you could eat for 12.50 pounds. Not too bad for value - we both had three courses and of course could have had more. They had a huge variety including hot and cold dishes, sushi, seafood, all of the usual Chinese buffet type dishes and some lovely desserts too. We're still full!


We got home just in time to watch the latest "Who do you think you are?" on BBC1 - tonight it was Brendan O'Carroll (Mrs Brown's Boys) and I can definitely recommend this program when it comes on Australian TV. We were particularly interested as we'd seen information about his family in the museum in Dublin, and he investigates the murder of his grandfather in Dublin during the War of Independence. Very interesting what he discovers.


Tomorrow we're off to Oxford for three nights, so in the morning we are picking up our last hire car for the trip, which we'll have until we return it to Heathrow the weekend after next. Not long now! Liverpool has certainly been a highlight, but I can't wait to see what Oxford is like (after all of those years of watching 'Morse' and 'Lewis'!)

Wednesday, 27th August            LIVERPOOL

Me with the statue of a young John Lennon outside the Cavern Club

The Albert Dock where the Maritime Museum is.

Guess where we are?!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Us outside the childhood home of Paul McCartney

In the Cavern Club

Robyn writes: It's been a BIG day! We headed out around 9.30, which is when things finally start to open in the UK, and walked through the CBD for a change, down to the docks area. On the way we walked through the Cavern Quarter, which is where the famous Cavern Club, where the Beatles got their start, is. Obviously almost everything on the street is Beatle-themed, so there was lots to look at, and I couldn't resist having my photo taken with John Lennon!



We got down to the docks about 10, and went to the information centre there to see about going on a "Magical Mystery Tour" (Beatles again - well, this IS Liverpool!) Unfortunately the 10.30 tour was sold out, as was the 2 o'clock one, so we booked on the 4pm tour and paid our 16 pounds each for the tickets. Then we went off to continue looking at the many museums of Liverpool.



Lex went off to look at an art gallery, and I headed for the Maritime Museum, via a very enjoyable diversion around Albert Dock and the many interesting shops there. I wallowed in Liverpool souvenirs for a while, regretfully buying very little (though I could have had a Beatle-themed house by now if I'd had the cash and the baggage allowance!). The Maritime Museum is fantastic - Liverpool has a huge maritime history and this was covered really well. They also had a very interesting display on the Titanic and Lusitania, as many of the crew on both ships were Liverpudlians. I happily whiled away the time there until I met up with Lex at 12.30 for lunch. We had this in the museum cafe, and we both had the local delicacy - Scouse. It sounds rather horrid but in fact it's a beef, lamb and vegetable stew served in a bowl with bread and butter. Lex described it as "Just like your dad's stew", and he's right, it is. It was quite delicious and very filling. So that's one more thing we can tick off our Liverpool "To Do" list!



After lunch, Lex went off into town while I went off to the Slavery Museum. Much of Liverpool's wealth in the 1700s came via the slave trade, which they were rather enthusiastic about at the time (less so now). It was, as could have been predicted, rather harrowing but very good to see. Then I went for a walk into Liverpool One myself to have a look at the shops and sights there before meeting up with Lex back at the Beatles shop for our tour.



The Magical Mystery Tour went for 2 hours on a bus, and took us right around Liverpool to see the famous Beatle sights. So we saw the lads' childhood homes (John's and Paul's are both now owned by the National Trust), schools, where John and Paul first met, Penny Lane and Strawberry Field. Plus our tour guide gave us lots of the background and history of the group. It was very entertaining and informative plus gave us a good look around Liverpool as well. Of course, we took many photos! The tour ended at the Cavern Club around 6 o'clock, so we went in to admire their photos, have a drink or two and spend a couple of hours listening to their live music (don't know his name but he was a good singer and was doing quite a few Beatles songs, so the crowd was appreciative!) It's a tiny club with hardly any seating but we managed to snaffle a table so were quite comfortable.



Finally hunger drove us home to our tea (leftovers!) and several hours of fighting with my computer, which has been playing up. Hopefully it is sorted now.



As the weather has warmed up a little this week (the days are now getting up to a heady top of around 18 or 19), the design limitations on this flat have become apparent. It has all glass windows which wrap around the entire outside of the building and the only ventilation you can have is the two doors. No aircon, and not a single window opens! The doors won't stand open by themselves, they have strong closers, so we have to prop them open with a bin or chair. The result is that even in a week where it hasn't reached 20 degrees, the flat is quite unbearably hot by late afternoon and evening until you manage to let some cool air through, and as our bedroom is on the top level, it gets no air flow at all. Which seems ridiculous! If I owned it, I think I'd find the architect and shoot him. Lord only knows what it was like in June when we had days in the high twenties! Apart from that, it's been a great place to stay - roomy and very central, and the view is wonderful.

Tuesday, 26th August                 LIVERPOOL

Robyn writes: Today dawned much finer than yesterday, thankfully - it's been quite cloudy at times but we've had no rain. We had a very slow start to the day, though, as we tried to puzzle out the best way to get around on Liverpool's buses, but finally got ourselves organised to head out just before 10. We went first to our local railway station, Moorfields, where we bought two all day travel passes which cover both rail and bus (cost us nearly 10 pounds for both). Then we caught the train in the underground to Central Station. From there, we walked along until we found a bus stop, and hopped on it to get to the main bus station at Liverpool One. We talked to the folks there about which bus to take, and then caught the 82 up the hill to Liverpool's Chinatown so we could visit the Anglican Cathedral just up the hill.

I just love the Liver birds! This was our view of them from our balcony this morning.

This is an amazing building - just over 110 years since they started building it, but it wasn't completed until the 1980s! Oh well, when you think about it, many of the great cathedrals of Europe took hundreds of years to build, and they did have two world wars to contend with. The cathedral did actually suffer bomb damage during WWII, but not too severe, and it has all been repaired. It is the fourth largest cathedral in the world and is quite amazing to walk into. The Lady Chapel alone is just beautiful, and as big as a lot of major churches. The stained glass in the main section is truly magnificent. We had a long look around, then a cuppa in the cafe before paying 5 pounds each to go up to the top of the tower. This involved two lift trips and about 120 steps; the last bit was fabulous and a bit scary as we climbed above the bells inside the tower with the wind howling around us! The 360 degree views from the top were quite amazing along the river and across the city. On the way down, we stopped at the 3rd floor where we saw a beautiful collection of religious embroidery, some hundreds of years old, and we could look out across the church. It was a really worthwhile visit and we really did enjoy the cathedral.

Inside the cathedral

View towards the river from the top

Magnificent stained glass

By now it was lunchtime, so we decided to combine a trip on the famous Liverpool ferry with lunch. We caught a bus back to Liverpool One, then walked the couple of blocks back to Merseyside and along the riverbank to the ferry terminal. This was a bit confusing and very badly advertised or explained inside, but we finally ended up successfully with two return tickets for 8.50 pounds each, and the next ferry was ready to leave at 2.

We enjoyed the trip, out to the headlands along the Liverpool side of the river, then back along the Birkenhead side, with commentary about what we were seeing and the famous Gerry and the Pacemakers song "Ferry Cross the Mersey" playing! It was quite cold in the wind but we were on the side at the front of the ferry so it was a bit sheltered but we still got a great view. The first stop was at Seacombe, then Woodside, where we got off.

Ferry, crossing the Mersey

We walked up the hill to look for some lunch (fairly starving by this time; thank heavens we carry muesli bars in our backpacks!) and at the top of the hill found "The Riverview" pub which certainly did meet its description - it had a wonderful view of the river. There was hardly anyone there so we easily got a table with fabulous views over to Liverpool, and ordered our lunch. This took ages to come but was nice when it did arrive. Unfortunately by then we had missed the next return ferry and realised that the next (and last one of the day on our tickets) wasn't for nearly an hour. (The day trip tickets are between morning and evening commuter times, so we had to leave there by 20 to 5 at the latest.) Not really long enough to go off and explore over there, but quite a while to sit and twiddle your thumbs!

So we ended up walking to the train station nearby and just using our day passes to head back to Liverpool right away. I was a bit weary by this stage so came home to put my feet up while Lex went off to Liverpool One, the main CBD to check it out. After such a big late lunch, we've just had soup for tea and are having a quiet evening in. Have done more washing which should get us through to York next week, at least. It has fined up this evening and we had a glorious sunny late afternoon - hope it holds for tomorrow!

Monday, 25th August                   LIVERPOOL

Robyn writes: Today dawned cloudy and wet, and basically stayed that way for a lot of the time! Having been in four countries in two days, it was sooo nice to not have to race off to be in a particular place at a particular time and a bit hard to get motivated to go out and do anything, so I put some washing on right after breakfast, and Cait and Sandy both called on Skype for a chat. Luckily by 9.30ish the rain had pretty much stopped, though the clouds were still very heavy.

We decided to go out and explore the docks area more thoroughly, so both rugged up very warmly (it was 12 degrees out there) and I put my Crocs boots on for sloshing in puddles. It was actually fine to be out in, as there was only the finest misty rain and wind blowing. Cold on the face, but we were warmly dressed so it was quite nice. Liverpool has some of the most impressive civic buildings we've ever seen - there was obviously a LOT of money in trade and shipping (and slaves, of course.) We wandered right along the dock areas past several museums, historic buildings and boats. During WWII the docks here were bombed very heavily so there's a mix of old and new right along that area. The Mersey is a big, wide river and quite fast flowing. Tomorrow we're hoping for a nice fine day so we can ride on one of the ferries and actually be able to see something!

Lex, Merseyside



I particularly liked this statue of the Emigrants - representing so many of our ancestors

The sweet shop we passed had a Beatles portrait done in jelly beans!

Jordan street, home of the Wilson family, is now just new warehouses.

Lots of the old wharf buildings have been converted beautifully into shops, apartments, hotels and museums around the riverfront and the old shipping docks. Many cities would kill for the amount of wonderful waterfront this has given Liverpool - it's quite lovely. We really enjoyed walking along and taking it all in. Then we realised we had come quite a distance south and by now we were quite close to Jordan Street, which is where Lex's Wilson ancestors lived. His G-G-grandfather David Wilson ran a Bridewell in Jordan St (sort of like a low-key jail) and we had the address from the census records. The entire family lived there including his son Samuel, Lex's great-grandfather who came to Australia. So we walked up the hill under the looming Cathedral and found Jordan St, but sadly the entire block where the Wilsons would have lived is now a row of reasonably new warehouses. There is a lot of redevelopment going on in that area everywhere you look.

By now it was lunchtime and a long walk in the cold air had given us quite an appetite, so we headed back down the hill to the river front and the Albert Dock to find some lunch. We settled on "Revolution", one of the restaurants which fronts the inside of the dock and had a lovely table overlooking the water by the window. Very pleasant! We had a fabulous lunch - Lex had a spicy blackened chicken burger and I had a Japanese Chicken Katsu curry. Yum! This was made even better when the waitress informed us that all main meals were half price!

Lovely view from our lunch table over the dock

Lex was most impressed with this Belgian beer

 

Old stone statue of a Liver bird in the museum. The question is, what sort of a bird is it?!

This display tried to answer the question!

After our lunch, we decided to go and see one of the museums (there are several along there and all are free), so we decided on the Liverpool Museum, which tells the story of the city. It was really interesting - we saw an 8 minute film on the Beatles and lots of displays about all areas of life in the city past and present. We spent quite a while there taking in lots of the exhibits before meeting up for a cuppa in the cafe at 3.15. By now my feet were quite sore (Crocs boots aren't all that comfy to wear all day!) and we were both rather weary so we walked home via Tesco for a few groceries. It was starting to rain again rather heavily at times so I was very glad to get in and put my feet up and read my book.

Lex went out again for a while while I did more washing - he went for a look at the World Museum near us which has an aquarium in it he went to have a look at. It has five levels so there is still much more to see! We figure that there is so much to see just in the local area that we probably won't get far out of the city, except for the ferry ride. Liverpool has turned out to be one of the pleasant surprises of the trip, where you get to a city you don't have any expectations of but you really love it.

It's now quarter to nine and still raining quite heavily outside. We have an excellent view over the city from our windows but tonight the doors are NOT open! We've had a lovely home-cooked meal - it's so nice to be self-catering again - and the dryer is churning around. I was getting very frustrated that it just didn't seem to be drying anything, and I couldn't get the lint filter out to check it. Lex managed to pull it out (it's a long tube at the bottom of the machine - nothing like an Australian one) and it was about 3 inches thick with mud! No wonder nothing got dry! Lex then spent about 20 minutes cleaning it off. Hopefully this load will have a chance now and we'll actually some some clean dry clothes to wear. We now have our fingers firmly crossed for better weather tomorrow so we can explore a bit more.
　

Sunday, 24th August      IRELAND - WALES - ENGLAND

Robyn writes: Well, it's been a much bigger than usual moving day, but thankfully it has all gone very smoothly and we arrived even earlier than we'd dared to hope! We are now in Liverpool, home of the Fab Four and Ferry Cross the Mersey and so far it seems like a lovely city. I feel a bit like I'm trapped in an episode of "The Liver Birds"! (A seventies comedies other Baby Boomers may remember too.)

We managed to sleep reasonably well despite the partying Dubliners downstairs. Irritatingly, I was awake for quite a while after they'd finished and there was actual silence! The day started horribly early at 6.25 with our wakeup call in the Arlington Hotel, and we were promptly up and dressed and finishing our packing, before lugging everything downstairs. Luckily we were nice and early, as our taxi, booked for 7.30, actually turned up at 7.15, so we were soon whisked off through the streets of Dublin to the port and by 7.30 we were walking through the door of the ferry terminal. We travelled with Irish Ferries as they had the ferry and train deal - ninety-six pounds for both of us to travel from Dublin to Holyhead then on the train to Liverpool.

Booking in proved thankfully easy (you can never be quite sure when you've booked online, but this was great) and we had soon handed our big ports over and were waiting upstairs. Our ferry left at 8.45 so around quarter past we were rounded up, put onto shuttle buses and driven right out to the ferry where we walked in through the huge back entrance for cars and buses and up into the boat. It's the biggest boat we've ever been on. We then found a table for two in the huge seating area and settled in for the two hour voyage. It passed very quickly - we got some food, read books, ventured out onto the top deck occasionally to have our hair blasted into madness, and chatted to the nice bloke next to us with his three kids. Before we knew it, Wales hove into view and we were coming into the port at Holyhead. All of the bus and car passengers disappeared to their vehicles, and we foot passengers waited patiently for about twenty minutes before we were shepherded out onto shuttle buses again and driven up to the Irish Ferries terminal. We collected our bags from the carousel and headed in the direction of the train.

The passenger deck on the ferry - very spacious with cafes etc

Goodbye to Ireland...

...hello to Holyhead in Wales

Our ferry, the Dublin Swift

Fortunately, this was right next door! We walked straight onto the platform, showed our train ticket and were directed onto the next platform where we discovered a train was leaving in five minutes, so we hopped in, stowed our bags and found seats. Easy! The train left right on time and we really enjoyed the scenic trip along the top of Wales. A lot of the time we were running right along the seaside, which was lovely. And we saw a lot of sheep and mountains, both of which Wales excels in. We had to change at Chester, so again we wrestled our bags off the train and asked our very nice conductor where to go. He pointed us just around the corner (no stairs to lug bags on - yay!) and we arrived to find that once more, our train was only minutes away. So once more we got on, commandeered four seats together with our luggage (no luggage racks on this one) and we were off again. This was a Merseyside commuter train with about 10 stops on the way into Lime Street, which is our closest train station, where we arrived a bit before half past two. Amazing, as we'd thought we we'd get in at about 4. We just had a really good run with our transport. Even better, Lime Street has a lift, so we didn't have to haul our ports up and down stairs, as sooo often happens in UK railway stations!

Then we hopped into a taxi and were soon at our accommodation for the next five nights at Premier Apartments. Here we seem to have hit the jackpot as, after having paid for a one bedroom apartment, we have a two level, two bedroom apartment on the top floor with a balcony! I keep waiting for the knock on the door to say they've made a mistake....anyway, in the meantime, we are nicely settled. It is so good to have our own space again, and the views from here are stunning.

Lovely Welsh coastal scenery

Great views from the balcony of our apartment in Liverpool

Closeup of the cathedral behind me, which we're planning to visit. A stunning looking building.

By now we were starving, having existed on muesli bars for lunch, so we grabbed our shopping bags and headed out to look for lunch and groceries. We are very close to the city centre here, so only three blocks away we found a shopping centre with a "Yates" restaurant next door (I don't think it's the seed company). They are a bit like a Weatherspoons in that they had some great meal deals - we got two curries with rice, naan and puppadum and a pot of tea each for nine pounds all up. Very impressive, and we were soon not starving! Vastly refreshed, we headed off for the nearby Tesco - only a little 'Metro' one but big enough for us to find meals for the next couple of days, so we are nicely stocked up. Then we headed home to put the groceries, admire the view (threatening rain but so far it's held off), read the tourist information and maps and flop in a heap for a while.

By six o'clock we were nowhere near ready for tea after such a late lunch, so Lex, inspired by his research, headed out to see the docks. I declined to go walking, put my feet up and got on with the weekly letter to my class and the blog instead. It will be a late tea tonight. However, we're just thrilled to have made it here so easily and it looks like Liverpool has so much to offer. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

The Liver Building, and those two birds on top are Liver Birds!

The near docks area is full of interesting things to look at!

Old dock buildings now high end apartments with water views!

Saturday, 23rd August             BELFAST - DUBLIN

Robyn writes: Moving day, and a big one! We set the alarm for 7 am so that we would be able to get up and going early, but it took us a while to get motivated. Early mornings have that effect on us now, heaven knows how we'll go when we have to go back to work...

We went down for breakfast then headed up to complete our packing but it was still after 9 by the time we got away - about an hour later than we'd hoped! Then the satnav gave us a hard time; we travelled in circles a bit, then finally I became suspicious, checked the destination and it had us going to the place in town Lex went to yesterday. Finally, after about twenty lost minutes, we were on the main motorway and speeding out of Belfast.

Newgrange from the Bru Na Boise centre. A very impressive mound, fronted with white quartz.

This display shows what a passage tomb looks like inside

Many of the stones at Newgrange and the surrounding passage tomb sites are carved.

View from the road as we were leaving. Next time we'll make sure we are in plenty of time to take the tour and see inside!

Our first destination was the Bru Na Boise centre at Newgrange, the prehistoric passage tomb burial site down in County Meath. It was an easy hour's drive away and we got there about quarter past 10. Unfortunately, by that time, the next available tour wasn't until 11.45 (they take you up the hill to the site in a bus), and we had to have the car back in Dublin by 2.30 so we just weren't game to risk it. Instead, we went into the centre there and at least looked at all of the information and displays about it. They have a viewing platform so we went up there to see it on a neighbouring hill. While we were there, two blokes were talking about the landscape, pointing to things. One of them looked strangely familiar and I couldn't help staring I guess, because he looked at me and gave me a cheery "Hi!" before they headed off down the stairs. I said to Lex,

"I think that was Julian Richards!" (He's the TV archaeologist from "Meet the Ancestors.") Lex was quite doubtful, as the bloke in question had a beard and moustache, plus a bit of a receding hair line, but I've just checked on the internet and am now quite sure it was him. Celebrity moment! (Am quite excited - I loved "Meet the Ancestors".)

I really think this is the bloke I saw today!

We had morning tea in the cafe there, then headed off in the direction of Dublin (stopping along the way to get another view of the tomb hill.) The trip into Dublin was easy, it then became the usual challenge navigating our way into the city centre. Lex dropped me off in front of the Arlington Hotel, where we're staying, as there is no parking out in front (it's right on the street in front of the Liffey River.) I went and talked to the girl at the desk who said our room wasn't ready, but we could leave the bags, so James the porter and I met Lex at the back door and we left everything with him, before heading out to Avis on Old Kilmainham Road to get the car back. We managed all of this, handed it over and caught the Number 40 bus back into the city, feeling quite exhausted by this stage! Whew!

We got off the bus near the Temple Bar district, as it's an area we've never really explored before. We had a nice wander through it and found an outdoor cafe, the Vivaldi, for lunch. Dublin is having a cool but nice day and though it's been very overcast a few times, no rain yet. (Fingers crossed.) It was nice to sit and eat our lunch and watch the world go by - many of them toting HUGE cameras.

Mecca: we passed the Guinness factory on the bus coming back into the city.

Café Vivaldi in the Temple Bar district where we had lunch

Bridges of the Liffey

Art on display for sale along the fences of St Stephen's Green

The Arlington Hotel, where we're staying. It has a huge bar and restaurant area downstairs, so I hope that the sound of reveling Dubliners won't keep us awake all night....

By now it was after 2 and we could book in properly at the hotel, so we wandered back, booked in and got everything up to our room, then headed out across the river again for a last look at Dublin. We went up Grafton Street, around the fences of St Stephen's Green to admire the artwork there (it's a huge, open air art studio - must be frantic action when it rains!) and into the shopping centre for a cuppa, then back again across the Ha'penny Bridge to our hotel, where we SHOULD be doing a major re-pack but are both ignoring that for the time being. Tomorrow morning we take the ferry back to the UK - fingers crossed for a nice smooth sea for the sailing over.