Manchester to Stratford

Friday, 27th May 2011

We left our little B&B in Manchester and headed for Macclesfield as recommended by the tourist people. What a gorgeous village, granite homes, lots of trees, the usual wealth of dry stone dykes and a busy network of canals.


The canals were very busy, we saw four boats in succession in a matter of five minutes. The canals are quite narrow so definitely one way traffic under the bridges. They were happy to be photographed.


Could not resist the inevitable photo over the canal.
It was very chilly so Andy valiantly gave his jacket to me
From Macclesfield we went through more tiny towns, and then on to the M6 to head for Stratford. Turned on English radio for the first time today, lots of choice of course. But after a while a bit like the tele really, you have to search for something interesting. We struck our first traffic jam, it took 20 minutes to travel 1 mile, and then suddenly it cleared up. I still can't get over how busy the motorways are at all times of the day.

We couldn't resist a visit to this old Norman church on the way to Stratford, a shame it wasn't open, but a good chance to roam around. This church is St Peters of Wootten Wawen and was built around 850AD - really hard to fathom such history isn't it?


This has turned into a bit of a graveyard visit I think.

We stopped at Stratford for a visit with Andy's Great Aunt Florence. We last saw Aunty Flo in Australia 14 years ago and it was nice to have a reunion over a cup of tea and cake. Her niece Janet was was there also. We have swapped email addresses.



We arrived at our Hotel in Birmingham and Steven met us for Dinner. We went to a Brazilian restaurant that boasted 15 different types of meats, and of course Andy and the waiter became the best of friends. Beautiful food enjoyed by all. We then went to the movies and saw the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, in 3D. Yes, everyone laughed, when I ducked the spear that was coming straight at me.