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.