So, we were crossing countries by
road and from Scotland we drove to England. This is for the first time we took
a very unorthodox approach for our accommodation. We really had to think
through as to how much time it would take to travel to and fro from the accommodation
we were to book, keeping in mind the traffic and time to leave the city in
order to reach the next destination. Hence, we decided that whatever
accommodation we would find enroute to our journey we would book it. I would
say that we were lucky to find an accommodation on the highway itself. Our halt for the night was at Keswick.
Usually we always read reviews and find out more about the accommodation that
we are going to stay in. However, in this case we didn’t bother much because we
were just staying for one night. While booking we didn’t really know what we
were getting ourselves into but we didn’t bother much because we were reaching
late anyway and were there just to sleep for the night and leave the next
morning. For sure I was definitely in for a shock; and kids were super excited
when we entered this tiny room, the room had 4 bunk beds and that’s it. Nothing
else, not a single piece of furniture not that there was any space to fit
anything else either, we could barely fit our luggage in this tiny room…. The
name of the property did suggest bunkhouse and this establishment was more so
for bikers and had a dorm room set up but still….. There was a bathroom for all
the dorms, separate for men and women and I refused to use the shower
facilities there the next morning, although apart from me everyone else did. A
little walk ahead and there was a kitchen where we had our breakfast and I was
happy to leave the place in a scurry.
At least the kids were really
excited, they had a great night in their bunk beds and were going to Puzzling
Place. I would really recommend this to all parents – it’s a fun way to play
with science. There is an anti-gravity room, crazy perspective room, illusion
room and a lot more. We all had a blast running to our favorite instruments,
machines/ rooms etc.
Due to our over ambitious goal of
covering a lot of places and driving through 3 countries in 13 days covering
over 3000 miles, it didn’t give us as much time to explore all the places as
much as we would have wished or wanted to. So, from Puzzling Place we headed
towards Liverpool to see the UNESCO World Heritage Sites - Stanley Dock,
William Brown Street, Pier Head, Castle Street, Albert Dock and the Lower Duke
Street.
On our way, we stumbled upon
Killington Lake service station and it was just beautiful. All of us stretched
our legs on the lush green pastures right next to the beautiful lake but it was
so windy and cold that we were forced to run back to our car. Once in
Liverpool, it was quite a task to find all the 6 World heritage sites and we
spent most of our time in Liverpool looking for the sites rather than really
getting off and seeing some of the interesting places but then that’s the price
you pay to have overambitious goals to cover a whole lot of distance. Later we
crossed Manchester, although we wanted to spend some time there but we were
running late on our schedule and had to reach Coventry before night fall. The
Inn that we had booked was very comfortable and we relaxed well for the next
day was going to be a very long ride.
