England

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.