Approaching the Humber Bridge in the rain
Crossing the Humber Bridge
Holy Trinity Church - Hull
Mick wearing a Shark Hat
Mick outside The Deep Submarium
Lyn at The Deep
Fish
Aquatic Garden Worms - strangest creatures
Lyn with Woolly Mammoth - now extinct (The Mammoth!)13 August 2010 - Friday
Pouring with rain this morning. Not a nice day to be on the roads. Packed up and checked out of St James's Hotel. Went to the local shops to do a bit of shopping and organize some Euros for our Paris trip. It’s amazing the difference in cost at different money exchange places just to buy some foreign currency.
Anyway after sorting that out we left Grimsby for Kingston-upon-Hull (commonly called Hull).
The rain continued throughout the drive including crossing the Humber Bridge, the first toll ridge we have encountered since we had been in the UK. The toll was £2.70.
We had booked into the Ibis Hotel in the city centre which cost £44 per night including breakfast. What it didn’t say on the website was that we had to park at a parking station which cost £5 from 3pm to 10am overnight and was about 500 metres from our digs.
Tired after the journey we settled in for the evening.
14 August 2010 – Saturday
Up, (not) bright and early for breakfast. We had to pick the car up before 10.00am, as it would cost an extra £10 to leave it there for the day.
We set off for The Deep, a futuristic aquarium (they call it a Submarium) which opened in 2002. This award-winning aquarium is home to more than 3,500 fish species, including rays and sharks. As well as great aquariums it contained a great deal of history of the sea and the development of sea life. Entry cost £7 for seniors plus £3to park in their car park. If you took your parking ticket into the café/gift shop they knocked £2 off your bill so we bought 2 apples and 2 bananas since their coffee was so crap, for the a the refund.
It's a pity but we can't look at a sting ray now without thinking of Steve Irwin.
It was very well laid out as we went up to the third floor in a lift to start and gradually worked our way down through all the displays on a sloping ramp, stopping to listen to and watch interesting audio visual displays on the way.
They had a good variety of marine life within coral landscapes including plenty of Nemos!
A 3D movie about sharks was also pretty good except for the dozens of kids racing around squealing.
Well worth a visit if you are ever in Hull.
It was then on to the museum quarter which included the Hull Museum where we found a great Woolly Mammoth at the entrance. The museum was full of ancient artifacts including skeletons and a great Neanderthal man. Early man was not very tall or so they reckon.
As the day was getting on we just had time to have a look at a retired trawler, The Arctic Corsair before getting lost driving back to the hotel. (We only had a very rudimentary map that the hotel gave us and coupled with Lyn’s map reading skills, or lack of, we were destined never to find the hotel).
Anyway, luckily, we stumbled onto our car park and from there it was a 500 metre walk back to the hotel.
We were very lucky with the weather today as despite the weather forecast promising heaps of rain, it didn’t eventuate so there is no difference there between the British and Australian weather forecasters. Useless.
There was an item on Skye news tonight about the Tony Abbott being favoured to become the next Aussie PM. It didn’t mention the polls but I expect the story was based on poll results. It was the usual stuff about the Ironman thing showing him swimming, running and cycling and the budgie smugglers and the angle he is using promising to stop the boat people. The Australian people want to take a look at the illegals flooding into Britain to get some perspective on that.
Julia Gillard got a brief mention.
Driving down to London tomorrow. Will miss the Czech (BRNO) Motogp unfortunately.
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