I think I took for granted where I grew up. My parents deliberately chose somewhere with good public transport links and lots of green space. Some of this green space is actually blue space - Chasewater - which is a large reservoir which feeds the local canal network. The blue space is also surrounded 3/4 of the way by a railway line for steam trains - based on the original bits but largely reconstructed.
They often have events like this weekend's 1940s day. Instead of paying to go in, I decided to walk the larger site and explore what was on offer in nature.
The main station was covered with war-time memorabilia from both sides and lots of people in costume. This smaller station round the corner was nice and quiet and still made up on theme.
As they are all kind of on their break in between trains I decided not to 'interact' and to let them all rest
It's a genuine working station with signal boxes and everything.
As there was a war on I paid extra to not have to use my ration book and had a bacon sandwich for £3 - it was just what I needed after the long walk on the hot (but overcast) day - and a £2 Fanta topped it off nicely.
I carried on walking to the end of the line, then back round the reservoir to the main station.
YouTube footage of the trains here!!
The whole loop is a fairly pleasant walk, but I went through the rougher parts off the path and I saw the wild deer
Back by the busy, carpark side there are more things to do. This little castle was put up in the 70s and we climbed all over it - now it's purely for the birds.
Instead you can pay to do lots of extreme hire things on the little businesses that have popped up.
Or get some 'nosh' at The Shed. I had a normal ice-cream here and it was good. The Gelato is really special.
The one thing I did pick up that was review worthy (from the 'Innovation Centre' cafe) was the Magnum Vegan. I'd wanted to try these before - as they seem to be on all the posters but not always in the freezers.
A dairy -free Magnum is a great idea for two reasons - one being that Vegans can eat it, and the second is the potential of lovely dark chocolate!
I wasn't disappointed, it's a dark delight! The ice-cream is authentic enough for me - it wouldn't pass expert inspection for dairy as it melts too fast (don't order this one in the heatwave!) but its refreshing and high quality. I think that you could easily switch the machine making the normal magnums off now if I was in charge. I'm not sure how easy you could make a white & pink Magnum like this but when they try I'll get those too.
So yeah - growing up I assumed everyone had steam-trains and a beach in their back garden (OK - a 10 min walk away), I guess now I know better.
1 comment:
Very cool. Nice pics too.
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