Up at 7 am for coffee & showers. Packing is well underway with just a few bits left for me and Kelly doing her jigsaw puzzle. She is s little lighter now that her uniform is packed away in Chelsea's drum. She will keep her pipes with her though.
08:30 was our planned departure time giving us plenty to catch our 09:40 Virgin Train to Stafford (via two trains). This gave me the opportunity to grab a geocache that was very close to our dorm.
We said our goodbyes to our flat mates that were awake and started trekking the gear down via the elevator. I dropped the keys off at the office and we headed down the hill to Cathedral St at 08:45 sharp 😄
We stood on the corner for about a minute when a cabbie came by and grabbed us. As it was raining we quickly loaded up and headed to Central Station.
Once at the station we grabbed a Starbucks and enjoyed a bit of people watching. The train arrived and we headed down to the "G" car that would take us south. Bags loaded and seats sorted, we departed at 09:40 exactly.
Breakfast this morning was a choice of Traditional British Breakfast, bacon bun, sausage bun, eggs Benedict, eggs Florentine and fresh fruit... did I mention that we like 1st class!
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| My choice! |
We enjoyed the trip down and once across the border into England the sky's parted and we saw blue sky! Next stop was Carlisle and our friend Dan joined us for the remainder of trip. He will guide us through a train change to get to Stafford.
We got off at Warrington Bank Quay and waited for the 10:00 Glasgow to London via Birmingham train. A quick ride into Crewe to change to another train.... thank heavens Dan is with us!! Especially since "the holder of the tickets" left them on the original train! All good though.
We now will grab the 125 to Stafford. It was a tad late but we got on and enjoyed another 20 or so minutes of 1st Class.
14:05 We were in the door at The Best Western Stafford. All checked in, Dan took us on a tour of the town showing us where they lived, where Vicki worked and then along the main parts of town. We parked at his work garage and walked over to Victoria Park. Lovely scenery with beautiful gardens and river area.
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| Victoria Park |
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| Thatched roof. |
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| Nice scenery |
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| Lawn Bowling anyone? |
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| Victoria Park |
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Very quaint little streets that gave an old school feel as you walked down them.
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| Narrow streets in some areas. |
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| The Collegiate Church of St. Mary |
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| Church Of St. Mary |
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| Parrish Church of St. Chad |
There is a pedestrian shopping area (designed by women I suspect) with local shops and shoe stores. There was this neat old movie theater that was taken over by a food/bar chain and saved from destruction. It is very cool inside as they left the main building intact.
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| Old theater saved by pub chain. |
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| Inside the theater. |
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Dan took us to the Sun Inn where we met up with Vicki. We had a glass and then walked back through the park to grab a geocache. We took another car tour of the area and ended up at Stafford Castle. It's the high point of land in the area and an obvious location for a fortification.
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| Stafford Castle |
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| Stafford Castle |
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| Stafford Castle |
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Next a tour of some back country roads featuring some great vistas of heather. The road had a few potholes in it but Vicki shouted out possible problem areas with "A dodgy one!!"
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| Heather everywhere! Near Cannock Chase AONB |
You are probably wondering what the heck AONB stands for... it's simple... "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" We stopped at the Greyhound Pub for a nice dinner. Managed to have a great lamb shank with potatoes & gravy... it was delicious.
We headed back to the hotel to grab some laundry and then off to Dan & Vicki's place to visit and do said laundry. A nice evening discussing cruising ensued as well as a quick walk to the shop to grab water and other refreshments.
They dropped us at the hotel and I did my blog. Off to bed
