The innkeeper custom made my mushrooms and bacon on toast. A man came in the back door, he was also staying here. His van had been broken into by some teenagers...the van that's parked next to my hire car! We rushed out make sure the BMW was okay. It was. Thank goodness! No way I can afford the £1000 excess!
We quickly got out of there before the youth of Bolton came back for round two.
In the early part I had to concentrate hard with the different road markings, surprise roundabouts and pedestrians crossing wherever they feel like. We drove to Hindley, where Poppy has an address for a cousin. He tried calling last night but had been given the wrong phone number.
Success! At first she thought he was the gas man she had called for, but soon enough we were having a great chat in her lounge room.
Onto Wigan. Parking in the UK looks confusing. Everyone seems to park on the footpath. I took the easy option and found the shopping centre. Starbucks found, hot chocolate down we strolled around the town centre. Nothing overly fancy about this place. Reminds me of the inner west of Sydney except older.
Poppy had no more addresses, they all proved to be inaccurate based off our conversation in Hindley. Manchester is only half an hour away and I'm really keen to test out this car. Sat nav set for Old Trafford, we were on the motorway.
One word. Intimidating. Wall to wall trucks who can't reach the 70mph speed limit and other BMW's who's only instinct was to go 15mph over the speed limit. I managed to find a happy medium, on the speed limit!!
Sat nav was vague in it's requests with "prepare to keep left but turn half right". I missed the exit. We finally arrived at my now fourth favourite stadium, (MCG 1st, Wembley 2nd and now Croke Park 3rd) Manchester United's Old Trafford.
With our limited time we didn't do the stadium tour. We checked out the megastore, the monuments outside and around the stadium including the tribute to the 1958 Munich Air Disaster.
A flying visit in the BMW through the centre of Manchester. Beautiful city. Unfortunately due to our time restraints, we couldn't stop for a wander around the city. Being here last year I've seen much of it anyway. Only now I feel 99% confident on the British roads.
Back to Bolton to fill up the diesel (at ~AUD$2.55 per litre here. Yes that's a two!). Returned the car in one piece, I get my £150 security deposit back. Taxi to Bolton Station, back to Wigan Wallgate to walk across the street to Wigan North Western. As you can see this is an action packed day!
Downed a large Chinese noodles and relaxed on the Virgin Trains service back to London Euston. Just a little over two hours in grim cloudy conditions as the sunlight faded. It was replaced by flashing bolts of light as we sped through cities and countryside at what seemed like the speed of sound. Arrived into the hustle of Euston and somehow managed to get two big suitcases through the underground tunnels.
On the tube to Hounslow. A little bit out of the city but good price for a hotel room and it's close to the airport. Modern room! Touch sensor light switches. Huge LED TV. Big room by London standards.
One last day in London tomorrow. I'm looking forward to 5pm...
No comments:
Post a Comment