Day One - Manchester - 29 August, 2024 

Weather: Fine - 18º max.

Accommodation: StayCity Apartments, Manchester


After the long journey from Brisbane and a good night’s sleep we woke early to a fine day in Manchester. This was our settling-in day before heading to NW Scotland, our destination for the majority of our holiday. The city was still waking up at 7.45am when we walked the streets getting our bearings. 




Thankfully, many cafes were open for a choice of breakfast venues. We then had jobs to do to prepare for our journey north - getting our communications sorted, picking up our hire car and some grocery shopping. 


We decided that as we only had one day in Manchester, and we have been several times before over many years, we wouldn’t race around like headless chickens trying to see everything. We settled on visiting the Manchester Art Gallery which was a ten minute walk from our accommodation through the city centre and its parks. It was well worth the visit as the gallery celebrated its 200th anniversary last year and has a diverse collection of works. There was a range of exhibitions including “Taking Stock”, a review of over 6,000 objects in the gallery’s care, “Trading Station” on how hot drinks have shaped our lives and “Stories of Women, Work and Uncertain Futures”. 





Lucien Freud, “Girl with Beret” 1951


Our main purpose for visiting Manchester was to meet up with our friends Ron and Remy who live in the nearby suburban village of Temperley. We met Ron fifteen years ago on the Pennine Way whilst we were undertaking our Land’s End to John O’Groats walk. He walked with us for a week during one of the major highlights of the walk and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Ron joined us for our Coast to Coast walk in 2012 and some of the Pembrokeshire Coastline Walk in 2016. We drove to Ron and Remy’s house through school peak hour from the city centre and met them at 4.00pm. It was a great catch-up and we were pleased we had made the effort. Ron is now 80 years old and walks are now mostly confined to the quintessential local pub, The Quarry Bank which we set off to on our arrival. There was much to catch up on. 





We arrived back at our apartment at nine o’clock and were asleep very quickly. Jet lag had caught up with us.


Tomorrow we start heading north. 








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