Every country has at least one Southport

Tuesday morning we headed north along the coastline to Southport. We thought we would have a quick look around here before moving on.... but our quick stop turned into at least 3 hours!! It was a gorgeous sunny day - too good to be in a car and Southport has a great esplanade so we spent the best part of the day here!

Couldn't resist going for a walk along the mile long pier, it was just beautiful. This pier is the second longest pier in Britain and recently won the 'Pier of the year' award. It is also the oldest pier and has been here since 1860! (Had a few upgrades though!) A tram runs along the pier and so does a little yellow train but we were having too much fun walking!

You would think after walking a mile you would be looking out into the ocean, but we were still a fair way back!

Check out the beach!! These first few photos were taken about a 1/4 of the way along...

This is as far as cars are allowed (below), and yes some people were walking all the way out with beach gear in hand from here, and yes others just parked their car... unloaded and started playing on the beach!!! We didn't actually go down onto the beach because you couldn't get down there from the pier, but the sand didn't really look like playing quality and was quite wet. (I presume with High Tide the water comes all the way in.) That's a lot of beach!!

We have lots of photos like this... especially when you are on the motor ways, we see heaps of planes over head and most of them are making 'plane clouds' as we call them! They do look cool, especially when their paths cross.

This is at the end of the pier, in the background you can see just how far away we still are from the oceans edge!

The girls had so much fun with these little windmills things.

The view walking back to the promenade and Ocean Plaza. Lots of entertainment happening here - live singing, a bit of dancing and people sitting around enjoying the sunshine.

Not there yet though...

The tram passes for about the 5th time!

Finally back to the entertainment hot spot.... where the young and old ride on the carousel... walking stick and all!! (sorry it's a little blurry!) But too funny to leave out - great to see isn't it!

One more bit of boardwalk over Marine Lake and we are back in the city center heading for the car!

We hadn't been traveling long when we hear.... 'I gotta do poos!' So we head for the nearest town, which turned out to be this stunning little country village, which I can't even remember the name off... but it was just picturesque!

Off to Liverpool

After Warwick Castle we were back in the car and heading to Liverpool to spend 1 night. The drive was a bit over 2 hours and we stuck to the motor way for most of it.

No sign of rain when we arrived in Liverpool. We had a quick drive through of the city - which seemed pretty quiet and then checked into our hotel. Not sure what any of these buildings are below as we didn't really do any site seeing here, not because there was nothing to see we just didn't really have time to spare. 'The Beatles Story' is one place I did want to go but we decided it would be best to get up and keep moving north the next day.

A quick look at Liverpool...

After checking-in to our room Mick decided to take the kids for a swim, and they loved it! Photos aren't real good but you can see how happy they are in the water!

Lani jumping in...

Emily off for a swim... well doggy paddle!

Lani finishing a lap!

Back upstairs and ready for bed.... but not before a milky mo!

Warwick Castle

We had a fun day at Warwick Castle. The weather was perfect until about 2.30pm when a rain storm came and washed us out!! Luckily we were just about done anyway - but boy did it rain! At least it wasn't cold and it was kinda fun running back to the car in the pouring rain!!

You wouldn't think it was going to rain by the look of this...

Warwick is home to 'Britain's Ultimate Castle', where you can spend the day living as it was 1000 years ago! (Well that is the idea anyway!!)

Our day started by watching one of the castle bowmen! It was quite interesting because he missed his small targets quite a few times at first - which represented to me just how hard these weapons were to use back then, and that it took real talent and skill.

But he was pretty good with the Welsh long bow...

However the cross-bow proved to be a bit more tricky!

The castle is all set up with different activities and events happening throughout the day which creates a bit of a medieval atmosphere.

This is The Mound, the oldest part of the castle, built in 1068 on the orders of William the Conqueror.

The castles history goes right back to 914 when the daughter of Alfred the Great ordered the building of a 'burh' to protect the small hill top settlement of Warwick from Danish invaders.

The kids liked watching the Peacocks in the Peacock Garden... Mick even saw one fly, which I have never actually seen before!! You wonder how such a beautiful bird could make such a horrible noise though!

And this sign reminded us of the night before in the hotel when Lani saw it and decided that it meant 'no whistles allowed in the hotel!' We thought it was pretty funny.

This is the Trebuchet which is launched a couple of times a day. Doesn't look much in the photo but it was pretty cool to watch. We remembered seeing a video of this from when Gail and Philip were here a few years ago (at that time, we never thought we would actually get to see it ourselves - but here we are!!)

This mighty big catapult is an authentic recreation of one of the biggest and most deadly siege machines of all time. It was used to attack the solid castle walls and fired huge ammunition. Mainly large rocks and stones were used but there is evidence of more unusual materials - such as manure and dead animals to spread disease - pigs being the animal of choice!! It took quite a bit of work to wind the machine up.

The castle was surrounded by beautiful scenery...

... and inside was the most interesting castle we have seen. It is filled with beautiful furniture and waxwork models, which help tell a story from 1898. Most of the furniture and fittings were actually here in 1898 which is quite important to me - because I like to see things as they were and not made up to look like a museum. As you go from room to room you can really imagine Daisy, countess of Warwick and her family and friends getting ready for a royal weekend party.

Next on the 'things to do' list was watching the Flight of the Eagles show, it was great!

This is a 5 month old Bald Eagle only a few weeks into his flight training. He was huge for 5 months and over the next year or so will look a lot like his mother above. (or father - I can't remember!)

This is a South American falcon, I just love his colour - each feather is perfect.

One thing we didn't get to do because of the rain is walk up this tower and along the wall. We were a little disappointed, but just another reason to try and take our visitors here I guess!

The kids had a fun day and were so good following us around, entertaining themselves. We also missed out on taking them to the big play ground part of the castle which we had planned to do on the way out - but the rain spoiled that too, so it was a bit of a shame.

Emily trying so hard to pull the sword out!

Had to do a few rounds of the inside because it was so good - here stands the big King Henry VIII with his 2 wives....

... oh no, thats right there were 6 of them!! 2 of which were beheaded, 2 divorced, 1 died and the last left widowed (probably the luckiest!).

Henry VIII never lived at Warwick Castle but it was crown property, which he inherited, when he became king in 1509, at the early age of 17.

Another popular part of the Castle is The Castle Dungeon but we didn't go in because we had the kids and there was no way I was going in there alone..... watch this video to find out why..... WARNING.... this is actually quite scary!