Blogs from Cheshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 16

Arrived in Manchester, UK on June 21, 2009. We took a direct red-eye flight from Vancouver to Manchester. W.. commented the dinner served on the flight was "the best food I've ever eaten". Two hours later he complained of a headache and said "this is the worst day in W.. history." Soon after, all that food he'd eaten came back up. It was a little messy, but a good thing we had a complete change of clothes in the carry-on baggage. N..'s aunt and uncle met us at the Manchester airport and drove us to N..'s cousin's house in Chester (Upton). We were all a tad bit jet-lagged. We went to a Greek restaurant to celebrate their daughter's 15th birthday.... read more

We woke up this morning to another glorious day! That makes three days in a row of blue skies and sunshine which is a rare thing indeed here in England. Since the weather was so beautiful we decided to drive back down to Congleton to visit some more NT properties in that area. Our first stop was at Mow Cop Folly - the ‘ruin’ that we could see last Sunday from Little Moreton Hall. Edna is still earning her keep as she managed to guide us to Mow Cop without any trouble. Unfortunately, Mow Cop is not a NT property that is in her database so she could not get us right to the folly - just to the village of Mow Cop. That was a bit frustrating as we could then see the folly up ... read more

After a good night’s sleep we awoke to a glorious morning. It was bit early for Kath and Albert to be up and about so we dragged out our maps and guides and started trying to decide where we could visit to take advantage of the great weather. We thought about heading down to Stoke-on-Trent, but then noticed a couple of National Trust properties near Congleton that sounded like they might be worth a visit. After a full English breakfast Albert asked us what we might like to do with the day. We told him that we thought it might be nice to go for a drive down to Little Moreton Hall, a Tudor manor house, near Congleton. Albert thought that sounded OK so we planned to head off straight after a quick visit to the ... read more

We had heard of the Anderton Boat Lift but had never seen it in action or visited the site. It was very well sign posted and when we arrived, we discovered there was a whole Information Centre dedicated to explaining the mechanics of the Anderton Boat Lift, giving the history of the local site. It was very well led out and the historical exhibition and explanatory "hands on" notes were excellent. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the boat lift was not operational (had we arrived a week later it would have been) but the day did have it compensations in that there were fewer visitors around and we had therefore access to all of the facilities without any queuing. But do check the opening times and when the lift is available before you go by going to: ... read more

On Monday we drove from Chester to the Lake District which was about a 3 hour drive. We set up camp with Maureen, Alex and David. After one or two or three beers we had a reasonably early night in preparation for our mountain walking the next day. Tuesday morning we set off around 11am to climb Catbell and Maiden Moor. They were both sharp but short climbs and windy as hell when we got to the top. We left Maureen and David and climbed the steepest of the 2 - Maiden moor. Once we got to the top we had a few piccies (see insert) and had some nice cheap home made sanga’s and coffee in our awesome thermas! The way down was something else again - imagine snowboarding style but jumping sideways into rocks ... read more