It's all about the coffee

The ferry across the English Channel has been something I’ve wanted to try for sometime. The ferry itself is quite good, it’s by no means a 5 star cruise, but it was comfortable, with plenty of entertainment options and the the food is ok.

Checking in and getting onto the ship was easy and very fast. Way better than a plane, and considerably quicker than the last couple of Eurostar’s we have taken between the UK and the continent.

What let’s the ship down is the port location in Rotterdam and Hull. If coming to Amsterdam again, I wouldn’t take this ship. The starting terminal in Hull is reasonably close to the station but the traffic was terrible and it took over 30 minutes in a taxi to do the short trip. The train from Leeds to Hull was also unreliable adding some unnecessary stress to the journey.

The ferry included a transfer bus to Amsterdam, which they quote as an hour, but given it drops people at Rotterdam station first and usual motorway traffic it’s was actually 2.5 hours.

It probably would have been better to get the ferry to Brugge as it’s closer to its ferry terminal. If we visit the North of the UK again and the head to the continent I’d get an early flight instead, but glad to have checked European overnight ferry off the travel list. The actual ferry itself is fantastic.

One last thought, the ferry takes cars too. If you wanted to take your own car between the continent and the UK this would be a great way to do it.

Coffee Report : Don’t bother. Horrible machine made jobbie. Not even as good as Nespresso. Wait till you get to Amsterdam. Had a fantastic one there…

A standard cabin

Bathroom

Ship map

One of the lounges

The best bit of being on a ship : cocktails

Of course the day we leave Halifax it happens to be the nicest day we have had here. Not a cloud in the sky and a brisk 10c

Blue Sky in Halifax

Coffee this morning wasn’t fantastic, just a machine made one from the beefeater restaurant attached to the hotel. After breakfast Sharon’s great aunt picked us up in her little fiat 500 and we went back to her place for a cup of tea to say goodbye before we caught our train to Leeds, then Hull.

We had ordered a taxi to take us from the hotel to the station, not that far, but far enough I wasn’t keen on hauling luggage that distance. We ordered a larger car, and sure enough a tiny one appeared, he called and sent for a bigger one.

Taxi company sent this when I asked for a big saloon to take all our luggage.

We ended up getting a slightly earlier train to Leeds. Unlike the one we took to York this had plenty of space and it was a relaxed 40 minute ride. We had a while to wait in Leeds so got some late lunch waiting for the platform to be announced. It’s announced, then we notice it flashed up as delayed. 10 minutes later it flashed up as cancelled. Ok, that’s a bit of an issue as we need to get the ferry.

The national rail guys tell us there is one an hour later we can just get on, but that would make the ferry connection less than an hour. Totally doable but a bit tight for my liking considering we really have to be on that ship or it seriously screws our plans around.

Leeds Station

So I start looking at Uber options just in case. It’s less than 100km, so it’s possible via Uber, and just as I’m looking the dynamic Uber pricing kicks in and the estimate goes from £150 to over £200. That’s going to sting. So we are debating do we just risk waiting for the next train or drop more than the cost of the ferry on an Uber just to make it. Luckily I look up at the board again and the train is “un-cancelled”. We can’t quite believe our luck so we rush down to the platform and 5 minutes later our original train does actually arrive and we are then zipping our way over to hull, and I’ve saved $400 phew.

Train to Hull is roomy with luggage storage

Just out of Hull we were thinking the train was somehow cursed and we were doomed not to make the ship as the doors on the train refused to close at one stop. Thankfully they just locked them manually and we didn’t get booted off the train like I thought would happen. Next issue was traffic in Hull, to go the small distance from the station to the ferry took 30 minutes in the cab.

Getting onto the Ferry was a breeze, no queues, showed passport and walked straight on. The ferry has a mini cruise feel about it, bars, duty free shops, restaurants, cinema etc and plenty of football supporters on a trip to watch Manchester United tomorrow in The Hague to keep the staff busy…

And we are finally onboard and relaxing a little.

Today was very cold (for us), wet and miserable. Even Steve mentioned the amount of rainy days was even against the norm for the area. Thankfully it wasn’t like this yesterday when we went to York. Whilst in the car Steve drove us past some of the amazing green farmland with all the stone walls and past the area where the Yorkshire moors start

Steve picked us up and took us to Haworth for breakfast, where we met up with Josh and Beth as well. Haworth is a small little town about 15km from Halifax. It’s famous for being the home of the Brontë family. The most famous work by Emily Brontë is Wuthering heights. So after a great breakfast and coffee we wandered through the streets (most shops were closed being a wet weekday) and then checked out the Brontë societies museum, set up in the old house which is now grade listed by English Heritage.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haworth

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontë_family

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontë_Parsonage_Museum

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_York_Moors

Walking down the hill in the cold and rain I kept thinking about the song from the 80s by the Dream Academy, “Life in a Northern Town”. By local standards it wasn’t really that cold, but for me it really did feel as though the world was going to freeze today.

Over breakfast Josh and Beth told us about a cafe in the centre of Halifax that did pink lattes. I had to try one of those, however they had sold out and couldn’t give us any when we went. A bit disappointed but possibly a blessing in disguise. I might try in the morning before we leave to catch the ferry to the Netherlands.

For our last night we had dinner at a Mexican / Italian restaurant here in downtown Halifax. The weather may not have been great whilst we were here but the hospitality and food has been amazing.

On Monday we went to York for a full day of looking around. We took the 8am train direct from Halifax. One thing I hadn’t anticipated is just how packed and crowded it would be. At least as bad, if not worse than the trains at home in some sections and almost as bad as Tokyo. Didn’t take a photo as I literally couldn’t take my phone out of my pocket. After Leeds, virtually everyone got off and we had the train all to ourselves to York. It became a present trip at this point.

Train at York station

We were blessed with the weather for most of the day, it’s been shocking here in Halifax but we finally got a nice day with some blue sky. Started with breakfast at Betty’s, apparently a famous tea house here in the city. Coffee and breakfast was nice. Most interesting thing was the “Engadine” torte.

Having grown up in the Australian suburb of Engadine I had to try it. The waitress asked how to pronounce Engadine, so she now knows how Australians say it. Not sure about the Swiss way but I’m sure it’s not the same.

We then headed down to “The Shambles” the most famous street in York. It was the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. There are three Harry Potter shops in this one street. Personally I think the street is overrated, the streets around the whole area are just as interesting (and less crowded). Not sure how they can manage three Harry Potter shops but all of them were packed with people. More cash extracted from me once again…

After this, I went to the National Railway museum and Sharon & Emma went to the Viking experience. The train Museum is fantastic. Only place outside Japan that has a Shinkansen on display. There were some beautiful shiny steam locomotives, one of which (The Mallard) holds the world record for steam powered speed, at 200kph, set in 1938. To put that in context that’s what the first bullet train did in 1964 (although as regular service not under special conditions). 200pkh on a steam train would be a scary prospect, they wouldn’t have the breaking capacity to match that speed.

I think the most interesting thing the museum had was an old small steam engine and railway carriage from the 1850s, both of which are very rare since almost all of them were scrapped at the end of their service life

Chance to walk under an old steam engine, and get oil dripped on you if you are unlucky

bullet train.

Viking experience display

Caught up with Sharon and Emma at the Richard the 3rd experience at a section along the York Wall, very interesting little museum around the battle of Towton in 1461 during the war of the Roses. You can read more about the battle below. The museum is housed in an old fortification along the wall, which was interesting in its own right. On display there was plenty of amour and weapons form the era and info about how they found Richard the 3rd under a car park in 2012

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton

Walked around the wall for a while and admired some of the amazing English gardens dotted around the city as well as some of the amazing buildings everywhere. We got off the wall near the main church (the Minster) and paid to do a tour. Like many buildings in the UK Roman ruins were discovered under the foundations when they did restoration work to prevent the church falling down 50 years ago. Amazing the building never collapsed as it was sitting on the foundations of a Roman building never designed to take the weight of this one.

Cheese Makers?

original Roman foundations

We had dinner and drinks in at the “hole in the wall pub” I had a traditional English Chicken Tikka Masala curry. Sharon had Scampi and Emma had a butter chicken curry.

It had started raining (again..) as we left, so hurried back to the station and got the 7.15pm train back to Halifax

On Sunday we had planned to go walking in the Yorkshire Dales, however the weather put a stop to that as it bucketed down most of the day. Instead of the Dales, Steve and Julie showed us around Halifax.

The two standout items in the city are the Piece Hall (18th century cloth hall) and the York Minster church. The Piece Hall has all sorts things of shops and cafes, which is where we got our daily caffeine fix.

https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Minster

In the evening we met up with the rest of the family for dinner at the “Hare and Hounds” pub. The food there was fantastic.

https://thehareandhoundshipperholme.co.uk