England on the Sharp's narrow boat Hawkeye, Day 8, May 22.
Goto Day: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17-19
Up and over to the Holiday Inn for their breakfast buffet. Really good "Full English Breakfast" for those of you who know what that term means - for those who don't, a Full English Breakfast is everything imaginable in the way of breakfast foods - eggs, sausages, baked beans, black pudding, several bread and fruit options, etc.. This one was really good but we restrained ourselves to only eggs, sausages, a taste of black pudding, toast and jelly. After breakfast, we wandered around the Boat Museum grounds for a while. Then had lunch at the Boat Museum gift shop and snack bar.
The first exhibit we took in (sorry, no photos) was a historical display of homes of the workers who lived on site. These consisted of several attached houses, all that were left of many that used to be on site. These were replicas of the homes of periods from the early 1800s to the early 1900s. The changes over time were interesting. After the housing exhibit, we wandered around the grounds outside of the Boat Museum Building - I suppose the Boat Museum proper(?).
One of the first subjects I photographed were these old working canal boats.
These are double wide, working, canal boats. Some canals - especially the locks - were designed to take wider than the standard 6'7" wide boats. These are examples of working wide boats.
I liked the texture of the many layers of paint on these old boats. The right hand image is an example of the designs used to decorate even many of these working boats.
After wandering around the grounds, we had lunch at the Boat Museum gift shop and snack bar. Then we went to see the Boat Museum exhibits in the building.
Frank, left, and Dot, right, each pose with a large tiller from an old canal boat.
These two steam engines are undergoing renovation but are not functional presently. I don't know what they were used for, probably moving product around the warehouse.
As we were leaving the grounds, I spied this odd looking boat. On closer examination, it is exactly what it looked like - a concrete boat! Apparently these were the subjects of experimentation with during WWII.
On our way back to Hawkeye, we walked over to take a look at the Ellesmere Port lighthouse, which was really neat.
We finished our walk to Hawkeye and relaxed for a while. We had reservations at Jabula, an African restaurant, for dinner so we headed that way after resting. Jabula offered a menu of different African game as well as American favorites. I had a sampler of African game meats - very good. After dinner, we walked back to Hawkeye, checked e-mail, watched TV for a while and turned in. Tomorrow we do the Manchester Ship Canal, possibly sharing the water with some very large, ocean going ships.
Goto Day: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17-19
England on the Sharp's narrow boat Hawkeye, Day 8, May 22.