Back to the mainland

On the way to the Glen Lough campsite, I rode part of the TT course. Preparations are well in place, with "road closed" barriers ready for action, and various types of cushioning placed on lamp posts, walls and other motorcycle-unfriendly objects along the route.  I still wouldn't fancy crashing into any of them, even on a high-speed bicycle.

Preparations were at an advanced stage at the campsite too.  The grass had been cut.  This one was relatively busy with two other campers besides me.  Reception was closed, so I slid my camping fee under the hatch shutters, and made extensive use of the facilities, including a very welcome drying room for my washing. 

A bit of a grey dawn saw me boarding the Manannan at 7am and rushing for a power socket to charge everything.  Otherwise I would be forced to go to a B&B purely for power, or maybe pay a fiver for an electricity hook-up for my tent.  Manannan is a high-speed catamaran, although progress is so smooth that it doesn't feel that quick.  The on-board café wasn't serving bacon "for maintenance reasons" but was doing a great trade in boiled eggs. It was quite entertaining watching people improvise with hot boiled eggs, without an egg cup, and just a plastic teaspoon to crack them with.  I had two breakfasts, partly due to boredom.

Ruminating some more about the Isle of Man, it occurs to me that most of the accents I heard were  from north west England (including the locals).  I suppose the IoM is probably their local island holiday resort, much as the Isle of Wight is for Southerners.

Goodbye, Ellan Vannin, and thank you for your hospitality.

As we entered the port of Liverpool, a medium-sized container ship, with probably 600 containers aboard, was being guided to the dockside by a couple of tugs.  It isn't till you see a single container forming the entire load of an articulated lorry that you realise the size of the ships.  And it's a mystery why they don't topple over with all that weight stacked above the deck. It was the invention of the container that led to the painful transformation of the docks, making many dockers and most of the warehouses redundant.