Liverpool and North Wales: Day 1

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Getting there…

We’re spending nine nights split 50/50 between Liverpool and North Wales. We set off from home just before 9.30 taking the A14, M6, M56, M53 and finally the A41 on our 147-mile trip. We estimated around two hours in total to get our first stop – the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port (more about that later).

The roads were busy, but the traffic kept moving on what turned out to be the hottest May 1st on record – pushing around 25℃!

10.46am: Our first stop was the rather grubby-looking Moto Hilton Park (North). A bit unloved from the outside, but Ann reported that inside it was more modern (and the loos were good, so surely the sign of a popular establishment! 😉). The other major feature that it had in its favour was the abundance of EV charging points. Initially, I only spotted a couple, but further towards the exit revealed a Tesla Charging Station sporting 12 superchargers PLUS round a dozen GridServe points – in short… PLENTY! (although we didn’t need a top-up just yet) After a quick bite to eat and a hot drink, we headed back on the M6 – next stop? the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port.

12.29pm: Luckily, the Museum also had EV charging facilities and we were soon plugged-in whilst enjoying a picnic lunch.

National Waterways Museum

Opened in the 1970s at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal, there’s plenty to see here – mostly outside – where today, the gorgeous weather added to the overall experience. It cost us £35.20 (1 youngster and 1 old ‘un) for entry, including a fiver each for the boat-trip.

Before we took a wander around the Museum itself, we took the opportunity to enjoy the short (30-minute) boat trip, which we had all to ourselves with just our Guide, Gary, and two crew. In that short trip, we learned a lot about the local industries – and their decline.

Back on dry land, we began to explore the Museum in more detail.

Everywhere we visited had been lovingly restored and there was plenty of background information available for those who wanted to know more.

What a great visit! It was like stepping back in time, and it was good that the majority of it was outside.

The perfect weather really added to our overall enjoyment of the Museum.

2.35pm: We ended our day by taking advantage of the Café and their ice-cream selection! 👍😋😋. We’re now all cultured out, and so it was time to head to our bed for the next four nights.

Hotel

Luckily, just a short drive away.

3.24pm: Here we are at Premier Inn, New Chester Road, Childer and at just under £65 per night, it was a real bargain.

Maybe that super-cheap price should have been a ‘sign’? That old saying ‘you know what you get with Premier Inn’ didn’t quite fit with this one. For a start, it didn’t look nor feel like a typical Premier Inn from the outside (apart from the badging). The car-park was a fair walk from Reception, and once we got to our room (that happily, DID look familiar) we discovered we had the slowest internet on the planet – so slow, even my speed test app moaned about not being fast enough to run. ‘No problem’, I thought, ‘I’ll simply hotspot off my phone‘. The result? It wasn’t much better at a lowly 2.5 down and almost 0, up (I need a good ‘up’ speed for blogging. At this point, I had no idea whether this was a temporary problem or simply that the Premier Inn is caught in some sort of time-warp! 🙁

Now that Premier Inn rooms don’t have a telephone, I couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way back to Reception and find out whether this was all a blip. It’ll be my first job tomorrow morning on the way to breakfast.

Tomorrow…

We’re heading to the delightfully sounding village of Port Sunlight.

Given the internet speed, I don’t think I’ll be posting a Blog tomorrow – everything just takes too long! 🙁🙁. My next Post will hopefully be when we get to Wales on Monday!