I was going to put all the photos from the trip in one group/set on Flickr, but I have been foiled. And I refuse to pay. So they're scattered through-out this post.
I've come to this conclusion. On a limited trip to the UK, don't go to Blackpool. It's horribly tacky, run down and really not designed for non-British tourists. It was horribly crowded, it drizzled on me and there is nothing so fantastic there that you'd want to go to it specifically for that.
Accordingly to my English acquaintances, Blackpool has recently gone down hill. It used to have a fantastic night life, but now it is a very rough town. I didn't stay for the night, so I didn't see if this is true. But lets start at the beginning.
Once again trackworks forced me to catch a bus. To Preston via Wigan. Not only was the bus late, but I wasn't feeling too fresh after the beer festival the night before. Not a pleasant trip to Preston train station. From there it was the little local train to Blackpool North. I'd planned to get off their, walk down to the south of Blackpool, then work my way back up and see everything I'd decided to do. I don't know how far it is down there, but it wasn't short. It's also worth noting that the day is Saturday, and England were playing Estonia in a Euro 2008 qualifier and then France at the World Cup, so there were bound to be quite a few people out. Anyway, I walked down the road I thought was the right direction to the beach, and for a change (I've been getting lost quite a bit) after avoiding the trams I ended up on the waterfront. Have a look at the photo and you'll see why I say that instead of beachfront.
Bit of a shock, as all the photos I've ever seen of Blackpool include the beach. I figured the tide must have been in and it was under there somewhere. But still, it doesn't look very inviting does it?
Given my limited time so far in England, I knew of 2 things I wanted to do. See the lights and have some Harry Redmann fish and chips. So first stop on the journey (as I was hungry was the fish and chips, so I started walking south along the waterfront to find the shop, and luckily it was only one block down from where I emerged. And then I decided to sit on a bench and eat my lunch watching the sea. As usual, I got surrounded by birds while doing this. What I found strange however is that they weren't sea-gulls. I think they're some sort of Terns. Eventually I ended up with just one bird, who had marked me as his territory so he ran off the other filthy carrion of the sky. I did get abandoned after someone else further down started giving away their chips. I was hungry though, so I didn't. At the bottom of my box there were some crusty ones, which I gave away to get my photo opportunity. Really good fish and chips btw, highly recommended.
If you look at the larger version of the photo, you can see the non-seagull bird. The seagulls didn't hang around, as that's a nasty looking beak they've got. And I'll be honest, the pigeons looked scared. They were scrawny and cautious and I suspect they've been hunted by the other birds at times.
But I continued down the promenade to what I could see in the distance was a roller-coaster. On the way, I got jostled by all the (very) young mums pushing their prams, the extended families, the hen/stag nights in fancy dress and generally just the seething mass of humanity. It wasn't pretty. It doesn't help that Blackpool isn't a particularly picturesque town either.
Not when it's raining anyway. And let's face it, that's most of the time. On the way down though, I did get to see 'Europe's largest indoor arcade'. Incredibly noisy and lots of bright lights. No pokies, as the English have Bingo instead. I have seen ads for bingo websites, which use almost the same language as dating sites back home. Crazy obsession...
Anyway, it's a fair way down the promenade/water/beachfront, and I walked the entire way. I got rained on (surprise surprise) but I got past the tourist trap eventually (every second store sells rock, a candy cane type sweet) and hit the hotel strip. There is a solid line of hotels for about a mile. It's weird. Then you hit South Pier and the optimistically named 'Pleasure Beach'. The only pleasure you can get from that is the pleasure of having a lighter wallet as it costs £28 to go on any rides. But free entry. The line was huge. Unfortunately the roller coaster was inside 'Pleasure Beach' so I didn't get a chance to ride it.
It does look very cool though, so maybe another visit just to 'Pleasure Beach' is in order...it's not like there is a huge range of Theme Parks just an hour down the road over here.....
So, after that disappointment it was back up the beach to the 3 attractions I was interested in seeing. In the order I saw them, they are:
Louis Tussaud's Waxworks - The quality was sometimes questionable, and I didn't know a lot of the people depicted. Some of their eyes really seemed to follow you. Kind of creepy. But I read all the cards and learned a lot about people. Like I'm taller then Johnny Depp.
Dr Who Musuem - I'd been to this before, at Longleat. But K-9 set the place on fire (he must have been dreaming of robot sheep) so it got moved to Blackpool. I didn't get much out of it, but I'm not a Dr Who fan. It was pretty interesting though, and I did pick up a postcard.
Blackpool Tower - All 185 metres of it. I couldn't get a ticket to the circus but it was still fun. I thought it might have been a little scarier at the top given all the warnings around (typical advertising) and it is a quite impressive building. Don't go in while Scout Groups or the Brownies are visiting though. That's all I'm going to say. This one was worth the price of admission.
Notice how you can now see the beach? And you can probably see how far I've walked as well. You can probably see the tram lines if you look really closely as well. There is a clear plastic pane at the top of the tower so you can look down and see all the way to the ground, which I thought was cool. Unfortunately at that point my phone packed it in, so I lost that photo :(
And after that fun-packed day, it was time to head home. But not before a Tram ride and the lights. So I caught the Tram down from the Tower to South Pier and back. The lights aren't what they cracked up to be. In fact, they're so poor I didn't even take a photo off them.
I left Blackpool at 730 and got home at 11. Bloody track work. On the bright side though I didn't get lost at all on the way home from the station, so that was good. Overall, I'm giving Blackpool 2 out of 10. It's designed for English tourists, not international men about the world like myself.
Next stop, Liverpool. Still not sure when that will be, but it will happen soon. The Beatles Museum will be the main attraction, probably the Liver (pronounced 'Lie-vur' (thank you Top Gear)) building as well, and hopefully the tourist sites will give me more info.
For all those waiting on postcards, I have purchased some and they will soon be winging their way back to Australia.
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