The Deep - Hull

Lots to look at.

Jack decided that he wanted to go The Deep over in Hull for his birthday treat. Nice to have a weekend off decorating!! It was a straight forward trip along the M62 and we soon arrived.

After a short wait queuing we headed  into the aquarium complex. Finlay wasn't sure about the low lighting and needed a little encouragement to get started. He soon got his head around everything, I stayed with Finlay and talked about everything we looked at, he soon forgot about the environment and enjoyed looking at the various aquariums.

Jack trotted around the building with his friend Sam and was happy to spend time with is 'mate'.

I thought everything was amazing, I could have quite happily spent all day gazing into the tanks, the sheer size and scale of some of the aquariums is breathtaking. The kids kept moving on and didn't spend much time looking in detail, typical kids!

Look at Finlays' Face!!

At lunch time we headed to the cafe which is up high in the building with great views over the Humber.

We spent the afternoon going back through the aquariums, this time the kids did better and asked lots of questions about what they were looking at.

I enjoyed looking at the bigger fish, sharks and rays in the huge central tank. I also liked the diversity of fish in each of the tanks. The kids liked the large lobsters and the colourful tropical aquarium.

We left the aquarium mid afternoon, on the way home we detoured over the Humber bridge. The kids can say they've been over the bridge now!

It was a good day out and everyone enjoyed the visit. It's always the same with the kids, they rush through everything and me and Andrea end up keeping an eye on them, spoiling our enjoyment! The joys of kids.

Pateley Bridge Camping

The BMX Boys

We originally wanted to camp over at Kirby Lonsdale, but the site was fully booked so we ended up at one of our favourite sites in Pateley Bridge.

Arrived at the Riverside Caravan Park at 5pm.  It's amazing how hard the brakes have to work on the van when coming down the hill into Nidderdale, the smell was pretty scary! 

The kids wanted to go straight to the BMX track so I followed them over the bridge and onto the track. Both Jack and Finlay are pretty good these days and they were quite happy bombing around using the jumps and finding places to do other stunts !

Saturday we met up with some friends. We walked up to The Sportsmans Arms Hotel along the river Nidd and had a few drinks. The kids played in a small park near the pub. Typically Finlay ended up covered in Cow muck, not that he cared!

Debbie and Andrea, what a performance!

Andrea decided that we should walk along the other side of the river back to the camp site. "Follow me, it's a nice easy straight forward walk". After about s mile we came to a stream the flowed into the main river, there wasn't a bridge. So the easy walk turned into wading through 2 feet of water, shoes and socks off and trousers rolled up. Finlay was waist deap!

To be honest stuff like this are memorable and I'm sure we'll be laughing about this in years to come,

Andrea booked us into Olley's Restorante & Pizzeria, as always the food was great and we had a nice time. The kids ate all their food so it must have been good.

Sunday morning and a last chance for the kids to play on their bikes before we had an early lunch (bacon sandwich ) and headed for home , just as it started to rain.

Normally we like to keep going to new places, there arn't too many places that we re-visit but The Riverside is a great place for keeping the kids entertained and letting us go for walked around Nidderdale.