12 August 2016 - Lyons Farm, Melling, Kirkby, near Liverpool, Merseyside

Woken by the alarm this morning, we were off soon after 8am, and heading north to Ainsdale to deal with the garage. There we were well served by Pete and Bryony, soon away again in a little Suzuki courtesy car. There was a temporary hiccup with the Suzuki, because when Chris flashed his New Zealand driver’s licence, they told us that their insurers required that any drivers of the fleet must be holders of UK licences. “So we are stuffed!” I said however Chris suggested there might be a loop hole if we paid a higher excess? When Bryony phoned through to the insurance company, they advised her of an alternative loophole; New Zealanders were acceptable after all. We sighed loudly with relief, and progress continued through the red tape.

It was still mid-morning and it seemed a shame to simply head back to camp, and yet by the time we arrived at the railway station nearer “home” and travelled in and out of Liverpool, sightseeing in between, the day would be too far gone. Instead we headed further north, via the Coast Road, through the sand dunes to Southport.

Southport’s existence owes its thanks to an enterprising innkeeper named William Sutton who built the first sea bathing house on the beach in 1792, thus founding a seaside resort. Today it is home to over 90,000 folk, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England.

The town centre is well back from the seashore, separated by an eight six acre marine lake, and it is on this, rather than the seashore, the amusement parlours and usual English seaside paraphernalia can be found. Here too are lovely gardens established during Victorian times. King’s Gardens cover an area of approximately seventeen acres, much of the area once the beach. Since the early twentieth centre, the sea has naturally recessed away from this part of the Sefton coast, the new area offering opportunity for a public park. They were extended by the Edwardians to include recreational activities, opened in 1913. Further restoration has been undertaken much more recently, those given the royal seal of approval in 2014.

The elegant tree-lined shopping street is set back yet again and is quite lovely, especially on a Friday morning in the sunshine. The pier which starts back at the lake is the second longest seaside pleasure pier in the British Isles; we did not check this for ourselves today.

Southport's marine lake

We parked in the Morrison’s superstore car park, and walked about the town for a couple of hours, spending quite a bit of time in an amazing second hand bookstore up a narrow alley, one that extends over three floors and is guarded by a wonderful little man sitting at a desk near the entrance. We picked up an interesting looking book, for the massive cost of 50p, and soon found ourselves discussing linguistics with this charming gentleman. We might have stayed there all day, however another customer had entered in the meantime and looked as if he might offer greater economic gain to our new friend than we impecunious travellers.

On our way home soon after midday, we stopped off at the Tesco Superstore at Formby and stocked up for the days ahead. Our route from there took us east across low lying arable land; carrot, potato, wheat and cabbage crops visible from the road. It was the same landscape as we had crossed two days ago, but then we had crossed a little further north, on a road so narrow and high above the fields, there were passing spots at various intervals. That particular road was not appreciated by The Chauffeur at the time, when he was particularly anxious about the newly diagnosed dangerous vehicle.

It seems a shame to have not made the best of the better weather today, however we now have temporary safe wheels, engineering work on the Sorrento will be undertaken over the next few business days and we should be on our way again by the middle of next week. Things are definitely falling into place for us.