Isle of Man

We rode home today travelling 432 miles over the course of our mini-trip which equates to £0.15p per mile. We had a great time, especially the 3 times that we rode around the TT circuit.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were some videos that I couldn't upload, so, here they are:

Laxey Mine Steam Train
https://youtu.be/9ixzxaY0KUo

The Laxey Wheel
https://youtu.be/ZWnecUYjITw

Isle of Man Horse Drawn Tramway
https://youtu.be/cWWaELjDIyU

...and some extra videos from Pete Waterman's layout exhibited in Chester Cathedral:

https://youtu.be/VLyXLcu-9F4

https://youtu.be/F-bxBrB5zy0

https://youtu.be/pJ8z9_8EXF8

https://youtu.be/kzki47x66z0

Not too bad, really, we are both in our late 60's and still biking...😝😃👍🏍️🛣️

If you would like a "recap" of some previous motor cycling trips the links are listed below:

Route 66 - probably the best bike tour we have ever done
https://rickadderley.travellerspoint.com

East Coast to West Coast USA
https://rickadderleyec2wc.travellerspoint.com

These have been on our Harley Davidson CVO trike:

Touring Germany
https://TouringGermany.travellerspoint.com

Touring around Spain
https://TouringSpain.travellerspoint.com

Today was all about visiting Chester Cathedral and seeing Pete Waterman's railway exhibition (https://chestercathedral.com/making-tracks-3/), and what a day it was 😃.

We spoke to Pete Waterman on more than 1 occasion, he is really down to earth and really into the trains and very easy to talk to. Sand asked hime what did he enjoy more the music industry or trains, and he stated there would be no trains without the music industry and no music industry without the trains 50/50.

We also had the opportunity of chatting with Simom Kohler (https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/interview-simon-kohler-hornby) who presented the Hornby series on TV. He was easy to talk to, such a pleasure to meet them both.

Pete said that the layout took 55,000 person hours to complete, wow!!! It was really good to chat with Pete and Simon....

Here are a few photos of the layout:

This is a photo of the fiddle yard (where they control the trains for the layout)

I took many videos of the the trains, here are a few links:

https://youtu.be/-8ge7dtcYMI

https://youtu.be/DNpKRNG2Jpg

https://youtu.be/kzki47x66z0

A surprise while we were there was a Lego building of the Cathedral, wow, this was really good:

We found a 500 year old pub/hotel for lunch, what a find:

Mum found a friend in Chester:

Sand bought me an early birthday prezzie:

...it now means that I have 7 trains...😜😗🤐🚂🚃.

...I've never been good with maths, Sand said it's more like 27 trains 😁😆, I'm sure she's exaggerating...

We ride home tomorrow. What a lovely day to end our trip👍🏿🚂🍺😄🙂🚃

We travelled from the Isle of Man to Chester today but we had until 1400h before we had to board the catamaran, what were we going to do...? 🫡

Guess what, we rode around the circuit again.... what a surprise 😅😆😃. It only took an hour this time, maybe we'll set a record next time...😁.

After our final circuit we returned to our hotel for a light lunch before boarding. The boat was late arriving so we were late leaving, we settled into our seats for the journey. The journey started and was OK until we hit open water then the boat began to rock and roll (no music at all!!!) The captain announced that the seas were "moderate" and to take care walking aroung. Take care - we were all over the place, the sea washed over our windows on 3 occasions and we were sat in the top deck lounge ! 😡😡😜. Surprisingly we were both OK 😃. We stayed in our seats watching Sky news on the TV and not looking out of the windows. The 1st Officer announced, just over 1/2 way, that the conditions were improving, and they did, it eventually calmed down and we only arrived in Liverpool 10 minutes late.

We disembarked and rode to our hotel in Chester. We had a lovely evening meal in our hotel ready for tomorrow's train adventure, see tomorrow's post...🚂 🚂 🚂

We woke to a dry morning, hazy sky and no wind - for a change. We wanted to have an early ride around the TT course as they closed the roads at 1230h to facilitate a speed restricted practice session for beginners to the circuit. The Manx TT week begins today - I didn't know that when I booked our trip, bit it's a bit of a bonus.

It's great to ride around a "race prepared" circuit.

The start/finishing post:

Some photos of the circuit:

This time around we found a few places to stop and take photos. When we rode over the mountain we went into the clouds and visibility was severely reduced. We had to drop our speed to 80 mph ... only joking - to 20 mph 😆😀😅.

We then rode to the Groudle Glen steam railway and tea rooms:

We had to walk down a very steep narrow dirt and rock footpath to reach the river bed in order to walk to the railway station:

...but it was worth it. The train took us up to the tea room at the top of the cliffs:

...the Sea Lion was the train that pulled our coaches.

This is a video link to the train coupling to the carriages:

https://youtu.be/kdoLGGA1hfo

When we finally left there we stopped for a light lunch beside the electric tramway:

After a leisurely lunch we made our way back to our hotel, got changed and walked into Douglas:

This is the Isle of Man's war memorial of those who lost their lives in the 1st and 2nd world wars.

I finally managed to take a photo of the horse drawn tram that travells up and down the prom:

Here is a video link to the horse drawn tramway in action:

https://youtu.be/cWWaELjDIyU

Today we woke early by the alarm as we intended to ride the electric tram to Ramsey (https://manxelectricrailway.co.uk/snaefell/current-timetable/), returning to Laxey, going onto the Snaefell mountain railway (https://www.visitisleofman.com/experience/snaefell-mountain-railway-p1292361), returning to Laxey, finalising the trip to Douglas. Then taking the horse drawn tram for a ride up and down the prom.

That was the intention...

We woke to very high blustering winds, got ready and walked to the Electric Tramway Terminal, about 15 minutes from our hotel:

We bought an all day pass ticket each which would save us quite a lot of money to do all that we wanted. After buying the ticket we walked to the 1010h tram, as planned, only to see the notice board stating that the Snaefell railway was not running today due to the high winds. OK, no problem, we changed our minds to spend more time in Laxey.

The journey to Ramsey was really spectacular, the views were stunning:

...mainly following the coastline and going through villages. We arrived at Ramsey about 1130h for a quick turn around to go back to Laxey. (More about Ramsey tomorrow if all goes well).

Laxey, well, that made our day, a great place to visit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxey). In our view the 2 main attractions are the Laxey wheel and the lead mines.

We thought that we would have lunch in the local pub but they have stopped serving food "until further notice" but we were told that we could buy some food locally, take it back to the pub and eat & drink, which we did.

We took the 19 gauge railway (a very rare gauge) to the wheel:

...we rode through a tunnel and there was only 2" clearance to the sides and the roof, that is why were were in a "cage." 😜

The Laxey wheel is the longest running water wheel in Europe, you could go all around it and climb to the top... and we did😆:

It was really blustery at the top but I did manage to record a 360 degree video of the view (this will be on our last posting).

The Laxey wheel rotates twice a minute and was able to empty 20,000 gallons of water from the mine in an 8 hour day.

We walked to the lead mine:

...before taking the tram back to Douglas. That was an experience, an open carriage:

When we arrived in Douglas the crew changed the seats for the return journey. There was no turning the carriage around, they just pulled the seat back to face the other way:

If you remember the original Doctor Doolittle, Push Me Pull You, an animal, this carriage was just like it.

We were gong to ride the horse drawn tramfor a 1.5 mile each way trip (http://douglashorsetramway.im/, photos to follow) but, due to the high winds, it was not running 😡😡. This tram uses 22 horses, each horse complets 2 laps and is then changed.

What a great day out. We finished with a really nice meal at the Terminus pub situated where the tram terminates (obvoiusly 😃😆😜)

More to follow tomorrow...