We set off early on Saturday morning as the plan was to do some earth caches etc in the morning and then go onto the city centre in the afternoon to do some urban caches down at the Albert docks etc ( I was looking forward to these ones more as they didn't include mud - I HATE MUD!).
Earth caches I find are usually quite good as you tend to learn things from them and see some really interesting stuff - on Saturday we went to the place where the rock was mined which was used to build the Mersey tunnel and then went on to a place called Dungeon Wood to see a fault in the rock which has created an amazing waterfall. Dungeon Wood was muddy to say the least.....so, about 50 ft away from the co ordinates I refused to go any further as I was slipping all over the place and was concerned that if I fell in the mud I had no clean coat to walk around Liverpool in. Mr Custard in true Bear Grylls style carried on to take the pictures etc needed to claim the cache - now that was funny to watch...the muddy bankings became quite steep and the mud was like clay (extremely slippy) so he had to swing from the branches of trees and make leaps of faith to get to the end - which he did with style and grace! After another earth cache down on the beach, we changed our wellies to normal boots/shoes and set off into the city!
Time was getting on so we decided to go through the Mersey tunnel into the city centre - which I thought wasn't that badly priced as toll roads go - £1.40 each way. On arrival we headed towards the Albert Docks and found parking at Liverpool One - this was the most organised car park I have ever seen - it was absolutely huge and had staff all over the place telling you where the spaces were - which was much better than driving round for ages to try and find one. The escalators out of the car park took you right up into the centre of the new shopping precinct by John Lewis' etc which was right across the road from the Albert Docks!
Along with all of the other tourists, we crossed the main road and started walking towards the docks. Although a very sunny day, the wind was quite high and due to it coming off the river Mersey it was absolutely freezing! We quickly walked towards the cache and at about 100ft off realised that the bridge we needed to go over to get to the information needed to answer the questions about Liverpool and famine a long while ago was shut off due to work being carried out! This now meant that we had to walk all the way around the docks to get to where we needed to be so we started to walk quickly in order to not turn into ice statues!! Once we got there, again the other bridge was closed off (very disheartening indeed!) but luckily we bumped into a guy who worked there and tried to persuade him to let us over - the answer was no of course however, we asked him about the information needed and he pointed to a statue/plaque just behind us which had been moved until the work had been done! Hurray!! Had he not been there we never would have found it! We noted down the info and then headed back towards the centre to get out of the cold!
The last cache we did was then up at the John Lennon Peace Memorial......Wow!! Now that is a beautiful statue and is really worth a look...high up in the new precinct, you arrive at the memorial to see a wonderful burst of colour and shimmer - the doves on top of the statue look like they are beautifully flying above you and due to the gorgeous blue sky/sunshine which was with us that day, everything looked so inspirational and vibrant! I took a few photos of the statue and then we decided to go back to the car as we had been out all day.....it was also now mid afternoon and the jacuzzi/pub at The Village hotel in the Wirral where we were staying at were calling..........
That was a brilliant weekend caching and sightseeing! Amazing sunny weather too but absolutely freezing! ;)
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