Day 24 – Saturday 25th May 2013
The last day of our incredible journey and today is the most beautiful weather we could wish for! After another leisurely breakfast, we went with Geoff and Carole’s daughter, Emma, and Carole, in search of doggie supplies as Emma is getting a new Cockerpoo puppy in a couple of weeks time. We went to a local garden centre with a pet department, and also a Pets At Home store, and got Emma pretty much sorted with what she needs for when Barney arrives! We headed off from Geoff and Carole’s after saying our goodbyes and thank-yous, and arrived in Liverpool to absolute chaos as they have a festival on for commemorating the war of the Atlantic with a number of visiting ships, aircraft and helicopter display stands, etc. With the beautiful weather, the crowds were just crazy, coupled with a number of closed roads, made actually getting to the check-in area for the IOM Steam Packet something of a challenge as the main attractions seemed to be in and around the check-in loading area – interesting! Coupled with the fact that the place became swarming with motorbikes due to the TT traffic, you can imagine the chaos! On the plus side, as we were there very early (ie, 4+ hours early!), we were first in the queue with the swarms of people filing past, and the Mini got continual glances, comments, people taking photographs, etc, which was good exposure for our supporters’ adverts! Ian was in his element, talking to various total strangers about the Mini and our Italian Job adventures! We eventually boarded a very busy boat, found our seats, and had an extremely calm and pleasant evening’s sail over the Irish Sea to home.
