After The Show: An Urban Stravaig Around Liverpool Docks

Architectural style

The Exhibition Centre where the Outdoor Trade Show is held (see last post) is in the heart of Liverpool's renovated docklands and on the banks of the Mersey. Walk out of the show and there is the river right in front of you.

Just outside the show

After three days in the show looking at gear, talking, and ambling round the warehouse-like hall I felt a need for fresh air and space and to stride out rather than stroll slowly, stopping every few minutes so I decided to have a walk along the riverside and around the docks in the glorious sunshine. 

Redbricks & boats

I had no destination in mind and nothing I especially wanted to see. I just wandered around looking at anything that seemed interesting. There were a few out and backs, a few deadends, a few repeats. It didn't matter.

Here are some more of the photos I took.

Green & blue

Urban wildlife

Ripples in mud

Lock gates

The river Mersey

Boats & houses

Really?

Liver Birds

Big wheel turning

What is it about London buses?

Looks tasty.

A grim reminder of how a little fishing village became a major port

The building never stops

Man at work

Note 1: Photos taken with Sony a6700 camera and Sony E 16-50 f3.5-f5.6 lens.

Note 2: The next post will return to the hills. I promise!

Contrasts: The Cairngorms & Liverpool, Thunderstorms & Sunshine, Cities & Nature

View over Strathspey from the Cairngorms, June 9

Last week the dry spell ended with thunderstorms and I went to Liverpool. Just before the weather broke I walked along the top of the Northern Corries in the Cairngorms on a day of increasingly hazy skies and enervating heat. Two days later I was on a train to Liverpool for the annual Outdoor Trade Show.

Glass & metal, June 12

Or rather a series of trains, four in total, one more than expected. The thunderstorms had begun and damaged the line outside Inverness so my train from Aviemore to Edinburgh was delayed. When it finally arrived it then stopped for good at Perth. I never found out why. Another train took me to Preston and was almost on time. From Carlisle south I watched dark rain storms sweeping across the sky to the west. The wonderful Blitzortung app showed a solid wedge of lightning strikes all the way south to Bristol and across the whole of North Wales.

A final train to Lime Street Station and I was outside on the streets of Liverpool, streets that were awash with water as torrential rain hammered down. Reaching my hotel, a twenty minute walk away, was exciting and challenging. Seeing through the sheets of rain was difficult, crossing roads hazardous, not skidding on the thin river underfoot required concentration. I could have done with trekking poles. I could have done with a better waterproof jacket, waterproof overtrousers and waterproof footwear. I was woefully under-equipped and entered the hotel lobby sodden and bedraggled. Welcome to Liverpool!

Bright halls, hard edges. June 13

The next morning there was no sign of the storm. The sky was blue, the sun hot, and the pavements dry. So it remained for the rest of my stay. For three days I wandered round the big exhibition hall looking at outdoor gear and chatting to acquaintances old and new. How many years had I been doing this? About 45! With only a few years missed. Unsurprisingly it was very familiar. And still interesting.

The Mersey. June 15

Outside in the sun I stared at the wide river Mersey. The water was murky, swirling dark and brown. I thought of the clear streams of the Cairngorms. I’d be glad to be back there.

Corridors, corridors. June 13

Glad to escape the spooky seemingly endless hotel corridors too. Unnervingly bland and characterless they spoke of horror films and sinister murder mysteries. Lights triggered by sensors came on just as you reached them. There was never anybody else about.

Albert Dock. June 14

Before the trains home I had time to amble round the renovated docks area. The developments are impressive, the history fascinating. The Museum of Liverpool provided much more of the latter.

By the time I was walking back to Lime Street Station my senses felt overwhelmed. Cities throw so much at you. Noise, smell, crowds, bright lights. A confusing clash of architectural styles. I needed the simplicity of the hills, the quietness of nature. I’m out of practice with city living, and happy to be so.

Lilies, lupins,hills. June 17.

Back home the Pyrenean lilies and lupins were in full bloom in the garden. The loudest noise was a cock pheasant strutting around calling. I watched rabbits, red squirrels, and roe deer. In the distance Bynack More rose into a pale blue sky. Peace!

Now it’s time for a walk in the hills.

Cairn Lochan, Cairngorms. June 9

 

Liverpool & the Outdoor Trade Show

Big cities are strange places. At least they are when you haven’t visited one for a long time. The noise! The smell! The people! The buildings! The traffic! Wow!

The city in question was Liverpool and I was there last week for the Outdoor Trade Show (OTS). I’ve been to such shows many times over the decades in places as varied as Harrogate and Friedrichshafen. Rarely has a year gone by without my attending at least one. Due to the pandemic this was the first since 2019, however. Indeed, it was the first time I’d been out of Scotland since then, and only once had I left the Highlands. Other than that brief visit to the edge of Edinburgh the biggest place I’ve been in the last three years is Inverness, a city itself but hardly Liverpool scale.

The show itself was down in the newly developed docks area, right on the banks of the River Mersey. Inside it felt familiar and just like every other trade show. Somehow this was reassuring. I was there to look at outdoor gear, but much enjoyment came from meeting people I mostly hadn’t seen for three years. One of the best aspects of shows like this is the community feel. OTS may be about business but it’s also about the outdoor community and it was good to feel part of that again. Online meetings don’t adequately replace face-to-face ones.

I’m not going to write about the gear I saw here. We made some little videos on some of the most interesting stuff that’ll appear on The Great Outdoors website soon and I’ll be reviewing items on the same site the rest of the year and probably into next year as some of the gear won’t appear until then. For now, I’ll just say I was pleased that sustainability was a major theme. I’m aware that some companies are probably only doing this because they feel they have to and there’s undoubtedly elements of greenwash around. However, I think that whatever the reason it’s better companies do something rather than nothing and that the outdoor industry is at least moving in the right direction.

 

Away from the show I had a little time to wander round the Albert Dock and Mann Island areas, now redeveloped and modernised and a big tourist draw. I hadn't visited the area for many decades (I was brought up in Formby just up the coast and so came to Liverpool quite often as a child and teenager) and it was just about unrecognisable. The development is attractive and there are informative signs as well as museums for a deeper look at the history – I had no time for these, unfortunately. There is somewhat of a clash of architectural styles though, with the red brick of the functional dock buildings and the pale grey of the classical Liver Building and its neighbours somewhat at odds with the hard angles and flat brightness of modern glass and steel constructions. 

 

 

After the show I spent a very enjoyable few hours with my brother John who lives not far way and who I hadn’t seen for quite a few years. I mentioned to him that I could do with a decent coffee, that in the hotel and at the show being, frankly, vile – I’d abandoned several almost-full mugs from various outlets (oh, I have got fussy!). “There’s a speciality one next to your hotel”, he said. And there was. Root Coffee. And it was excellent. How had I failed to see it? Because it lay the other way from the show and the docks. Thanks John!

 

 

As well as visiting England for the first time in three years I also hadn’t been on a train in that time. To be travelling on one again seemed quite exciting! Actually six trains there and back. Of these three were cancelled yet somehow I arrived only slightly late and got back to Aviemore at the right time. Perhaps oddest was that the London to Edinburgh train I was meant to catch at Wigan was cancelled but only from London to Preston. So I caught a train to Preston and caught the almost empty train there.

As always crossing Drumochter Pass was a joy, even though it was grey and windswept. Home again!

Now I’m back my blog will return to normal. I don’t think there’ll be another city for a while. The hills beckon.

Note: the show pictures were taken right at the end, just before packing up began. Most of the time it was busy!