The New Face of Liverpool.

There is never a dull moment around here. While having breakfast we watched a diver and some assistants working on the dock wall by the entrance to Salthouse Dock. They started by pulling metal shutters or panels up out of the water. The first thing to come to mind was concreting under water?  Well I wasn’t far wrong because on our walk later we stopped for a nosey and the guys on the floating pontoon were preparing grouting with some sort of liquid, rolling it into balls about the size of a cricket ball and passing it down to the diver who must have been packing it into the dock wall. Who would ever have believed it.

Diver working in Salthouse Dock

With the unpredictable English summer we are experiencing it was a case of getting out and about while the going was good. This morning we walked around the docks and checked out the toilet and shower facilities which unfortunately are not as close to the moorings as we had imagined. Still not a great problem.

As the water and power are still not available at the pontoons yet we found the water point in Albert Dock which is the next dock over. We won’t need it for a while but we will have to check with the Port Manager when it’s permissible to move from dock to dock. With 4 Duck Marine Tours (ex WWII American amphibious vehicles that can go on road or water) diving in and out of the dock it gets quite busy at times.

 

After lunch we met up with one of today’s new arrivals who are flying the Australian flag. The boat has a name with an Aussie ring about it, ‘Matilda’ as in “Waltzing Matilda”. They are very alike to ourselves in that he is from Lancashire, she is Australian and they met in Wellington New Zealand. They came over here for 3 years in 2003 and are still here but they have been back to Aussie a few times.

After this surprise meeting we walked up into town past the new Liverpool One shopping centre which is something out of this world if you are a shopaholic. We then carried on up to Lime Street Railway Station so that we know where to meet Tracey on Friday when she visits us from London. The station is also undergoing a major facelift so along with the Docklands area, Liverpool is really being rejuvenated ready for the 21st century.