Day 60 – Ticket to Ride (Tuesday 11th June 2024)

Last night I bought a ticket to ride….. on the train to Liverpool. And it was a bargain too, only £17.80 for two return tickets to the home of the Merseybeat sound of the 1960s. The biggest names from that era include The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers and Cilla Black. Visiting Liverpool to pay homage to those great artists who greatly influenced the music to come in the 60’s and 70’s was always high on our list of “must do’s”.

 

 

Liverpool is only 55km from central Manchester, a journey that takes about a 55 minutes on the train. Arriving at the main station, Lime Street, we stepped out into a cold and blustery late morning and developed a plan about where to go next. There were only three agenda items - explore the streets of downtown Liverpool, take a “Ferry ‘cross the Mersey” and visit The Cavern Club. We thought that the Liverpool Tourist Bureau would be the place to start. Google Maps showed us about half a dozen to pick from that all sounded like they’d be the “main office”. We chose the one down by Albert Dock figuring the recently renovated precinct and now one of the most visited places in Liverpool would be the right one. Not so, as it turned out. No drama. We were down by Merseyside where we were gonna finish up at some stage anyway so we took a nice, bit still cold and blustery, walk along the river to the Mersey Ferries terminal we could see about 1km away. On the hour throughout the day a tourist ferry leaves the terminal for a 50 minute anti-clockwise cruise down one side of the river and then back up the other stopping at the Seacombe terminal where those who want to explore the town of Birkenhead and surrounds can alight and resume their journey later in the day. We and pretty much everyone else stayed on the ferry.

 

The ferry terminal on the Liverpool side is named in honour of Gerry Marsden, the leader of the band “Gerry and the Pacemakers” who had a number of big hits, the best known of which was “Ferry ‘cross the Mersey”, hence its inclusion on the day’s agenda. We booked our tickets for the 1:00pm cruise (which came with a Seniors discount!) and had enough time for a quick bite to eat for lunch in the Fab Four Cafe. Getting out on the Mersey Ferry was a real thrill for me. We sat out at the bow to get the full experience of the cruise, as is our usual way for cruises. Along the way the recorded commentary directed our attention to the highlights we passed on either bank and, where appropriate, described the historical context. The most interesting things I learned were the astounding number of people who came to Liverpool as the starting point of their journey to far distant lands like America and Australia (9 million or thereabouts) and the astounding number of Irish and Welsh people who came to Liverpool and stayed – enough people to have a profound influence on the unique Liverpudlian accent.

Outside the Fab Four Cafe is a larger-the-life bronze statue of the Fab Four, struck in a casual “just chatting walking down the street” pose. It must be the most photographed thing in Liverpool. Of course, we got in on the act too. I’ve gotta say, the tourist who gather around the statue are most respectful and obliging of their fellow tourist who all want to be photographed with The Beatles. People get in there, get their photo taken and then get out for the next person to have their chance. They don’t hang around hogging the scene. Very nice to see. Down by the dock are three really nice late 19^th century buildings that have been very well restored. They’re set back a good 100m from the riverside so one can really appreciate their grandeur. In the same precinct, nearer to the water’s edge but not directly in front of the old buildings, are some ultra-modern buildings. As strange as it may sound the contrast actually works very well.

 

 

Photos locked away on the phone we headed for Mathew Street, not more than 1km back into town. That’s where The Cavern Club is, the venue where The Beatles were discovered and where they played about 260-odd times. It was the venue in Liverpool in the 60s and has remained that way to today, despite closures and changes of ownership from time to time. Well, we happily handed over the £5.00 entry fee and descended four flights of stairs into the venue which was, before 1957, nothing more than the cellar of a warehouse above. One enters directly into that classic place one has so often seen in early photographs and videos of The Beatles – a cramped, dimly-lit place of low, brick arches and ceiling with a tiny stage down one end. The walls are covered in rock nostalgia, signed photos of the many famous artists who have played there. Glass cabinets line the walls displaying the instruments of those who have played the venue before – some of them very famous. Bars around the venue provide refreshment for the thirsty patrons. It would be fair to describe The Cavern Club as a living museum. It’s still very much a going concern as a live music venue for aspiring artists, just as it was when the likes of The Beatles and Cilla Black stated out.

 

Past the famous front room is another, much larger stage. A young chap, Ritchie, was up there when we arrived. We grabbed a drink and a table and sat there listening to and encouraging him as he made is way with his acoustic guitar through the playlist of our youth. After his set was finished and the stage closed I couldn’t help but hand him a 10 quid tip because he provided such terrific entertainment for us and all the other “boomers” in the room. It will probably come as no surprise that 80% of the clientele were north of 55, I reckon. Everyone moved into the front room where a chap also of our vintage was belting out more of the same. People standing around were dancing to the great old tunes as each one came along. Kerry was invited onto the dance floor by a white-headed, bearded chap and they danced away together for ten minutes. We were having such a great time enjoying a pint or two and endless classic songs of our eras. This set eventually finished and the time for our return train to Manchester was approaching. I bought a tee-shirt to commemorate the great day and we headed back up to the daylight where we posed for photographs with John Lennon and Cilla Black before making our way to the station.

 

Back in Manchester we met Emily for dinner at yet another really interesting, lively and very busy venue called Mackie Mayor – another venue trading in a huge restored 19^th century building that offered a unique dining experience with a menu that was extensive and Asian-influenced but by no means to exclusion of other cuisines. A most enjoyable end to a day to remember. Incidentally, I learned from our friend Sandy later that night that today marks the 60^thanniversary, to the day, that The Beatles landed in Australia to start their 1964 and only tour of our homeland.

Day 59 – A day off (Monday 10th June 2024)

Before we make our final assault on this holiday we thought a quiet day would be in order. A day to do the last washing of clothes and work out how we’d attack the last week. Emily was at work so we had to entertain ourselves.

Once the chores were done Kerry got our her craft and I got out my computer with the intention of catching up on this blog. Well, that certainly didn’t happen. I logged on to find that both the BHA and the CVS website were off the air, the latter made more urgent by the fact that back at home WIN television were kindly running our advertisement in the lead up to the Olympic Trials and the President had received a few calls from prospective members advising that the advertised website wasn’t working. Anyway, since both website were off the air I quickly out two and two together and guessed it was probably due to a bill not being paid. I paid the bill with my credit card and they sprang to life.

 

 

Around lunchtime, we got out of the house and walked over to the Bridgewater Canal, one of the important waterways in the whole system, where we grabbed something to eat at a local sandwich shop and wandered down to the canal to eat it. Via the American Diner themed cafe on the top of the bridge over the canal and the tram route we headed back to Wood Rd.

For dinner Emily had booked an Italian restaurant in Sale. We took a very pleasant 45 minutes walk along the canal to meet her there while she cycled in from Chorlton. The cafe was like any other Italian restaurant you’ve ever seen and the fare was too (except that they only did pizza, no pasta). But it was warm and cosy inside and very lively. We each selected a different pizza and shared them.

While there was still enough light in the sky, Emily headed off home on her bike and we walked through the quiet back streets of Sale to ours. Back home I organised train tickets for tomorrow’s adventure in Liverpool and a car for Wednesday.

 

Day 58 – A Walking Tour of Manchester (Sunday 9th June 2024)

Round 13 of the 2024 AFL Season kicked off for us at 10:20am this morning with the live stream of the Carlton v Essendon match at the ‘G. Of course Emily was never gonna leave home without her AFL lifeline – her AFL Live subscription. Kerry and I caught the tram over to Chorlton but missed the opening bounce by a few minutes. All the messages on the Smith Family WhatsApp group chap made us feel much more connected to this important match happening on the other side of the world. The Blues has got off to a good start – promising. I plugged Emily’s computer into her TV (she’ll be able to enjoy the rest of the season watching it on the big screen now) and we sat back with nerves jangling. Instead of a meat pie and a beer at half time Emily made us bacon and eggs for a late breakfast. The Bombers hit back hard in the third quarter and things became very tense again, although Kerry was never really confident her boys would go on with it. A four goal burst at the start of the fourth quarter took the Blues out to a match-high 41 point lead but I was never 100% confident until we reached the “Leigh Matthews” point in the match – if there’s more minutes left in the game than the goal difference then you’re still a chance. The final result was Carlton 15.6.96 def Essendon 9.16.70.

 

 

With the Club song and the post-match reviews and interviews done we headed into Manchester with Emily as our tour guide. By the time we got to St. Peter’s Square the drizzle had become well established. First port of call was Emily’s office building so we can get a proper mental picture of where she goes each. Manchester is quite a maze of streets and squares and lanes. There is no order to it like the order of the Hoddle grid in Melbourne or the Col. William Light designed streets of Adelaide. I suppose that’s normal for such an old city that just grew over the centuries when, where and as required. Signs of the Industrial Revolution that made Manchester are everywhere – the countess steel, arched railway bridges, the stone arched bridges, the canals and basins with the red-brick warehouses along their banks. According to a number of independent opinions we’ve heard over the last couple of months when telling folks that we’re going to Manchester, the unanimous opinion is that it’s a city that’s going places - it’s the place to be in the UK these days. There’s evidence of this everywhere as more and more modern steel and glass buildings for both business and housing become intermingled with the city’s ancient Industrial Revolution landscape. There is much renovation, either completed or ongoing, of many of the ancient structures breathing new life into what might otherwise have become decrepit eyesores in the street. Instead they now add colour and life to pockets of the city as they perform new functions for which the original designers would never have imagined.

 

 

Through the “mizzle” (a combination of mist and drizzle, I once heard a Mancunian cricket commentator call it) we walked to the weekly Sunday market where a few street stalls had set up to sell a mixture of handmade things and other junk. Nothing of interest for anyone there. Around the corner, however, was a record store (remember them?!) that sold really old and rare vinyl and CDs. Emily and browsed through there for a while. Had I not been travelling I would have picked up a couple of rare Prog rock albums. Because she wasn’t, Emily bought a couple of old records! Kerry waited outside. From here we walked through the streets past the place where Emily first stayed when visiting Manchester in 2017 and then where she stayed when she first arrived this time, down by one of the canals. Along the canals we walked for a good thirty minutes or more where one could get a bit of a feel for what the city might have been like a couple of hundred years ago, popping up just near the Briton Protection pub, another classic little pub with a tiny front bar with a décor that was unchanged since the day it was built – well that was their claim, at least. The little pub is fighting for its life against the developer’s hammer. I hope it survives. The day was getting on but you wouldn’t know it because at this time of year up here it’s still light enough to not need street lights until after 10:00pm. Emily took us to a food hall in one of the aforementioned renovated buildings that sold Indian street food. It was really busy as we sat with others on long trestle tables and enjoyed a very tasty meal what I’m not quite sure. Some things were recognisable but suffice to say it wasn’t your classic Indian menu. Probably the food we daren’t eat from streets when we were in India last year but safe to eat here.

 

To end a great day we took the tram home but not without a last challenge. Our tram got a far as Old Trafford (yes, the famous cricket ground) and stopped. An incident at our stop further down the line prevent any further travel. So we, like many other patrons, stood outside Old Trafford in the rain trying to workout how to get home. We and a few others hoofed it 500m up to the next major road to hopefully catch a bus (no chance of that very late on a Sunday evening) where Kerry was on the ball and managed to hail the first cab that came by. We scrambled in and 20 minutes later we were delivered to our front door in Wood Rd.

Oh! BTW, I must mention that Manchester has adopted the bee as the symbol of the city. It can be seen absolutely everywhere - on public buildings, on buses and truck, on lamp  posts and bins and park benches, on cups and tee shirts and shop window fronts and restaurant menus. The places you'll find it is unending. Event the public transport system is called the Bee Network. It's great, giving Mancunian's a strong sense of togetherness and unity.

Day 57 – Up to Manchester (Saturday 8th June 2024)

The second last of our seven Eurail days was kicked into action to catch the 09:53 from Euston Station to Manchester Piccadilly. Yesterday we’d booked a seat, which the app said was mandatory. Evidence collected today suggested that may not have been the case. But it didn’t cost anything and it was good to know we had a seat on the train – which proved to be a valuable asset.

This weekend Manchester is hosting an event for young people called Parklife so the train was full of, once again, over-stimulated young people. The young lads and young girls were travelling in true European fashion, with can in hand. The young girls were apparently oblivious to the cold, rainy weather and dressed as if it were a warm summer’s day, an Australian warm summer’s day, that is, not an English one.

As promised, Emily was there to meet us when the train pulled in just after midday. It was so good to see her – hugs and kisses all around. Our plan of action was to offload our bags at our new digs, check out Emily’s new digs and then spend some time looking at Manchester central. Manchester is serviced by a good tram/light rail system that uses the old railway lines and winds it’s was through the downtown. So, off to the tram platform at Piccadilly we went to make our way out to Sale where we’ll be staying until next Saturday. I only booked our accommodation at 15 Wood Rd, Sales a couple of weeks ago as we weren’t sure of Emily’s movements when we booked the rest of it all. It’s a room in a private home provided by a lady called Isabel. Quite a good outer suburb judging by the gardens and the cars parked in the driveways…. and the comments of a taxi driver a couple of days later. We organised it through AirBNB and it was a bargain AUD$420/seven nights! The aforementioned tram passes by not far away with the stop at Brooklands (one stop past Sale) being a pleasant 15 minutes walk away.

The tram is very regular, never waiting more than ten minutes for one to arrive. Although Sale is not on the exact same line as Emily’s place in Chorlton it’s on the same side of town in the south-west. After meeting Isabel, dropping our bags and getting the key we all travelled out to see Emily’s abode. She shares the house at 58 Keppel Rd with two other girls and three other boys, with no relationships happening. For the record, it’s directly across the street from the house where the Bee Gees grew up before they moved to Australia. Chorlton village has a quite extensive array of shops, pubs and restaurants as well as a tram station. I think it’s just the sort of place Emily will be comfortable in. For a late lunch we stopped at her favourite, award-winning deli – The Barbakan - and then strolled the local streets until we found a pub with a tables out the front so we could enjoy the warm sunshine that poked through the clouds every now and then. The Horse and Jockey was clearly built for the latter as even I had to duck my head to get a beer. Australia was playing England in the T20 World Cup so went went in search of a pub with a TV playing the match. It wasn’t hard to find the Trevor Arms where we sat to watch Australia demolish the English bowling! There are so many beaut little English pubs all over the place. Without a word of exaggeration there is about a dozen within 10 minute walk of Emily’s.

 

When the Australian innings closed we set off to find another one that served meals so we could eat while watching the Australian bowlers demolish the English batting. Such a pub proved a lot harder to find. We tried the Royal Oak but it was a bit of a dive, certainly not to our tastes, and the kitchen was no longer open at 08:45pm, so Kerry and I headed for the tram and home. Emily stayed to cheer on our lads and watch a comprehensive victory amongst a bunch of long-faced Poms! Australia 7/210; England 6/165.

Day 56 – The London West End (Friday 7th June 2024)

The Eurostar to London was scheduled to leave Bruxelles-Midi at 10:56 and our hotel is only a couple of hundred metres away so we weren’t up at the crack of dawn. But we didn’t dilly-dally either. The advice was to get to the station 45 – 90 minutes before departure because it’s an international journey that leaves the Schengen area so border control and all that rigmarole is required. We decided to take the 90 minute option.

For a station that is an important and well patronised international terminal I’ve gotta say that Bruxelles-Midi fall a bit short of the mark. It’s quite old and in dire need of some TLC. I reckon it’s lucky to have seen a lick of paint since it became a hub for the Eurostar service. The German stations we visited in the last few days leave it for dead. Going through Belgian border control I was stopped because the X-ray machine discovered my little combination tool in Kerry’s case. I showed it to them and they let it through in the grounds that “Oh! It’s only a small one”. The same machine failed to detect my Swiss Army knife, a quite sharp 7” blade vegetable knife and two serrated bread knifes I’d packed in the same case. Ten metres further along the passport scanning machine didn’t like my passport (or the look of me) so I was directed to a human who, fortunately, did like the look of me and my passport and we moved through to the already crowded waiting room where we sat for 45 minutes.

Despite the clear signs saying “No need to queue at the gate to Platform 1. We’ll call you.” a long line of people were queueing all the way through the Duty Free store. Very keen to get to the UK, I suppose. When the call came the queue dispersed very quickly as people made their way to their reserved seats. Our carriage was way down the far end of the very long train but we got there in plenty of time. We “lucked out” on the travelling companion front, however. We were accompanied by a group of about a dozen young Belgian or Dutch lads who were in their way to London for the weekend. They were a bunch of excited school-boys, heading off on an adventure. They were probably good young lads (they were all well-groomed and had good teeth), just noisy and a tad exuberant. Not unlike the school children we’ve come across a number of times on public transport throughout the trip – just that they weren’t drinking beer.

Which brings me to an observation. It seems to us that train travel and drinking go hand-in-hand in this part of the world. It’s something quite foreign to us and the vast majority of Australians I’d think. Surely one can take a two hour train ride without the need to have beer? For a lot of people, apparently not. I’ve gotta say, for people like us to whom this is a completely foreign concept, it’s just a little disconcerting as there’s plenty of evidence about the bad outcomes bought about when alcohol is mixed with over-exuberance. My God! I sound like a wowser! Where that last bit of Rakija!

 

The train arrived at St. Pancras/Kings Cross on time, we strolled through the “soft” border control point (I’ve gotta say though, there were about two dozen sets of eyes upon us all as we walked through) and out onto Euston Rd. Down the road we walked for about 1km or so, past Euston Station and then into North Gower St and our Studio (LOL! Shoebox, more like) which had a ground-floor window out into the street. Straightaway we dropped our bags, went back to Euston Station and caught the Underground to Trafalgar Square. It’s always good fun catching the Underground and popping up here and there in London’s weel-known streets. We alighted at Charing Cross, to find that London’s famous landmark had been taken over by America’s Major League Baseball organisation. It seems there a proper match being played in London this week-end. We’ve visited Trafalgar Square four times since 1986 and only once (in 2013) has there not been something on that’s at least partially restricted access to it. Disappointed, we walked away towards St. Martin’s in Fields and beyond to find a pub for a drink - which we had no trouble doing.

 

 

From here we wound our way to Leicester Square which, for mid-afternoon on a Friday was very busy. SO much so that we both wanted to get out of there. Whatever character it may have once had it’s now all gone with nothing but trashy souvenir stores lining the streets and crap music blasting of the ghetto blasters of various “mobile” vendors of equally crap merchandise. Sadly, Piccadilly Circus next door was no better so we moved on up Shaftesbury Avenue towards the West End for tonight we had an appointment with the Novello Theatre to see the London performance of Mamma Mia! We were very early for that 7:30pm appointment so we killed some time walking across the nearby Waterloo Bridge and taking a short stroll along London’s Southbank on the other side. It was quite cool and blustery walking across the Thames but the view down the river to the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament was good nevertheless. Back on The Strand we stopped at the Wellington hotel for a quick tea of Bangers and Mash, which was very good and relatively cheap, and then went to queue outside the theatre door.

 

I think everyone knows that the original stage show, and the subsequent movie, runs a story-line that facilitates the inclusion of almost all of ABBA’s hit songs into one comprehensive performance. I have to give credit to the woman who conceived the idea, and to Benny and Bjorn with whom she worked, to make up a story where every one of the hit song remains in context with the overall narrative of the production and remains entertaining throughout. The staging was very simple but effective, just a couple of flexibly arranged pieces that represented either the inside or the outside of a Greek taverna. The only “downer” was the “dinky di” Australian character – one of the three “fathers”. Just as Pierce Brosnan’s singing in the movie was cringe-worthy so too was this character. The English actor’s effort to be an Australian was so bad we both wandered if he’d been directed to play that way on purpose. If not, then surely there must be plenty of genuine Australian actors in London looking for work that would have done a far better job. Anyway, the show was fun, all the hits were wheeled out (and sung properly and in their entirety) and the finale gave everyone in the audience an opportunity to belt out their best version of Waterloo and Mamma Mia.

The show finished at about 10:30pm and the night was still “not cold”. With the rest of the theatre crowd we walked up to Covent Garden station, caught the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross and the Circle line to Euston Square and then walked home.