In the Eye of the Beholder..

I read a conversation on Twitter the other day that went something like this:

"Has anyone been to #Liverpool? I'm thinking of popping there one weekend. Any advice? #ttot #travel

Edinburgh is nicer :)

Is it far from Liverpool?

About a 4 hour drive haha

I'd say there are definitely better places in the UK!!  Edinburgh or Glasgow. Basically just anywhere in Scotland.. It's way better ;)"

The person asking the question about Liverpool has now decided to travel to Edinburgh instead.

I see these kinds of conversations on Twitter, and in chat forums such as the Lonely Planets Thorn Tree all of the time.  I understand it.  If you've experienced something that you love, you're passionate about, and you want to share with other people, then it's a perfectly natural way to react.  I'm sure that their feedback was not without merit.  Edinburgh is a beautiful city; the fringe festival is one of the most amazing festivals I've ever been to, and the people are incredibly friendly and welcoming despite the invasion of tourists that outnumber the locals.

The bias is especially true when we recommend the place where we live.  Have you ever criticised a city in front of somebody who lives there? They can become very defensive.  They have grown to love that place.  It may have been an instant attraction, or it may be a strong appreciation that has built up over many years, or a lifetime.

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it" - Confucious

When you visit any city in the world, you're experiencing the world of many thousands of people who live in, and love that city.  It's easy to buy a guidebook, and to go and see the city's top 10 attractions for instant gratification and to save yourself a wasted day.  But don't we lose out on the very sense of adventure that spurred us to travel the world?  It can take time to get under the skin of a place and to really feel what makes it tick.

Liverpool was the European Capital of Culture in 2008.  Check out Liverpool's art scene.  Of course, it's most famous for being the birthplace of The Beatles.  But it's also home to other oldies such as The Farm, and newer stuff like The Coral and The Zutons.  It has the oldest and one of the largest Chinese communities in Europe.  Albert Dock has the largest  collection of Grade I listed buildings and Stanley Dock has the largest brick building in the world.  Not a city person?  How about a trip out to Formby Beach?  I'm not skimming the surface yet..

Formby Beach, near Liverpool

But I digress.  You see this isn't about Liverpool or Edinburgh.  It's more about travel, and what it means to the individual.  It's about appreciating and understanding where you are.

If you are a traveller who simply wants to skim the cream from the sites of the world, you will soon run out of "top 10's".  You will be forever trying to out-do your own previous experiences.  If you take the time to appreciate where you are, and what makes others love, really love, the place that you have found yourself in, then you can sustain more than a lifetime of memorable and "top" moments.


  

Great first night for Manchester's first Float-In Movie

We'd moored up in Piccadilly Basin from Tuesday night in eager anticipation of Wednesday & Thursday nights events.

Manchester was having it's first ever float-in movie, and we wanted to be a part of it!

We awoke Wednesday morning to the sound of Kayaks arriving, and soon the canal was teeming with children Kayaking around our narrowboat.

Later on Atelier had their little white sheds open, and people were out rowing around the floating garden.  Imagine; people in Manchester City Centre, boating.  It was all kind of strange, but really quite lovely to see people doing outdoor stuff, and all for free.

The main focus of this years Canal Festival events are the 2 float in movies.  Last night was the first of two films being show; Captain America, chosen as it was filmed in the Northern Quarter.

Doors opened at 6pm, and people were literally flooding in from the start.  By around 6.30pm the car park was full of cars tuned in to the station that was broadcasting the audio to the film, and they were letting no more cars in.  Red and white deckchairs, picnic benches, and tables decorated with flower displays awaited those who came on foot.  Ning set up their mobile Malaysian Restaurant serving amazing noodles out the box.  The whole area was buzzing.  Even the residents of the local apartments were getting in to the spirit, with many people out on their balconies to catch this Manchester first.

Our roof was lined with cushions, which quickly filled with bums (in part because of the promise of Bollington Brewery real ale, as well as waiter service during the movie!)

Now Captain America wouldn't be my first choice for watching a movie, but to be honest it didn't really matter.  We had beer, good food, and great group of people around.  We watched some of the film, but unfortunately it's a really dark movie, which made it quite unsuitable for an outdoor screening.  Of course, you can understand it's choice, bearing in mind it's significance to the area, but it did mean that many people left half way through the film.

Not put off by the dwindling numbers, we stayed, chatted, drank, ate, and soaked up the night. There was a real feeling of "how cool is Manchester to do this". A free event on a tiny "there's no money left" budget, and a real feel good evening.

After the film, the audio/ visual team spent some time looking through tonights screening and adjusting the light and colour which has vastly improved the quality of the picture.  Expect a far superior movie-watching experience this evening.

Tonights movie is The Life Aquatic.  It starts at 8.30pm but get here soon after 6.  Even if you're not a fan of the screening choice, you'd be missing out not to be here.  The friendly crowd, lovely food, and fantastic surroundings, make for a beautiful after-work event.

Things Don't Always go to Plan

Ruth and I have spent years travelling around the world.  One thing we’ve learnt is that things don’t always go to plan.  From public transport strikes, to bad weather, to earthquakes (there’s room for another blog on that one!), we’ve experienced scenarios that threw us in to moments of panic, followed by a swift change of travel plans (normally involving a good hostel and a large cup of coffee).  Flexibility is key when travelling – a warning to those who pre-book every night of their trip on Hostelworld before they’ve even left their home country!  When things do go wrong, and you re-arrange your travels around such unforeseen circumstances, it’s not unusual for the resulting experiences to turn out better than your original plans.  They also provide the fuel for the best pub stories when you get back! 

So back to Wandering Duck.  You may imagine that on the canal, ambling along at 3 miles an hour, not a lot can go wrong.  The problem is that the canals have changed little since being built 200 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic that we can still see and use these old lock gates to get our boat up and down hill, but it’s a bit of a bugger when you get a tweet to say that the lock flight is closed for leak repairs!

This in itself is odd – the fact that the Canal & River Trust is using social media technology to tell me that engineering from 1804 has failed!  But the world that Wandering Duck lives in IS a very strange one.  We say hello to everyone we meet on the canal like a scene out of Heartbeat – it’s like stepping back in time. Yet at the same time we’re listening to Maroon 5 on the ipod.

So we need to re-plan.  Cue big cup of coffee.  We have a private charter booked for this weekend and we can’t go down the locks. Well our guests want to get involved with opening and closing the locks. So here’s the deal; Instead of heading North to Marple Locks, we head South.  There’s another set of locks about 12 hours away.  If we do a few hours cruising before picking them up, we can take them on a lovely trip through these locks.  We check for water, public transport links. We hear from Ruth’s mum (our office is in their front room) that the womens rowing team have won 2012’s first Gold Medal – good work!  Back to the plan; we check for rubbish disposal, and turnaround point (we’re 69ft long and can only turn at designated spots sometimes hours from one another).  Even for diesel we have to re-arrange for the working coalboat to fill us up mid-way through the trip.  These are the logistics we spent months organising prior to starting our business.  We’ve just re-arranged it all in about 4 hours!!  We’re so wrapped up in it that we miss Bradley Wiggins get Gold in the Time Trial.  It’s never the same watching the replays instead of the real thing.  Final part of the jigsaw; there’s a fantastic pub in a little village called Sutton with good moorings right outside – the cherry on top!

Problem: We’ve just finished a trip in completely the wrong place, and we started so far away from our base, heading South, that it’s going to take us 3 days to get back to the Peak District.

Solution: (cue more coffee). We need to run a trip back to Bugsworth Basin.  It’s a one-off 4 night trip.  It’s a great route back along the Macclesfield canal, and did we say there’s great pub on the way?  Then there’s Lyme Park once we get back on to our normal patch.

We’re really excited by the prospect of a change of scenery and an extended trip.  It’s very last minute, and who knows, maybe it’s too late to get a group together.  But it doesn’t matter.  The point is, when things are out of your control, there’s no point stressing.  You can’t change it. So you roll with it, have fun with it. Dare I say it, fuck about and enjoy it. Life’s too short to waste a good pub story.