29th August 2021

Since arriving in Manchester on Wednesday, we have been blessed with warm weather, very much like Spring or Autumn temperatures in Adelaide. It has been a bit cloudy in the morning but mostly clearing up to be blue sky and a gentle breeze.  My type of weather, and what is lovely is it is late summer here.  So much nicer than the late summer last year in Adelaide where the temperature reached 36 degrees and then did not get below 27 overnight.  I never like the summer heat in the 40 years I lived in Adelaide.

With the good weather and Natasha taking a break from her exam studies, Mark drove us out to Heaton Park. It is about a 20 minute drive from my new home in Gorton and is on the northern side of Manchester city.

If you are interested in finding out about Heaton Park, here is the link to information from Manchester City Council, Heaton Park | Manchester City Council

The park is massive. It is filled with open fields, woodlands, tree climb walks, walking paths, an adventure playground, a boating lake, a golf course and historical buildings.  There was even a small pop-up fun fair and an animal visiting centre.  I loved how there is so much open space here.  We went after lunch for a few hours, joining a lot of families.  Alex spent some time in the big pusher, nicknamed “The Beast”.  It is the type of pusher that can handle rough paths, across the grass and even through the stream (creek).

According to the mobile phone health App, I managed over 10,000 steps and that included uphill and downhill.  So lots of exercise at a nice pace.  I left Mark to chase after Alex.  He loves to run.  He puts his little hands out in the direction he wants to go and then he runs.  He can reach a good pace too, so he has to be accompanied all the time.  He doesn’t understand about waiting for Nanna to catch up, sorry kid I can’t run.  He also doesn’t turn and run back when asked – if he is following his hands, he just keeps going.

We parked in the South Carpark and walked into the woodlands, to be greeted by tram tracks.  They have a small trolleybus type of Tram that travels along taking families for a ride. 

This is next to the lake, where people can hire a Swan boat for self-propelling around the water. On the banks there are geese, lots of them.  They know exactly where to be for people to feed them.  Many of them are Canada Goose – they are the ones with the black necks and some are Greylag Goose, the more uniform coloured ones.

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Our next stop was the adventure playground, where Alex spent most of his time crossing the wooden bridge – our little Indiana Jones.  The Beast was occupied by my bear Snow, who preferred it to being in the luggage carrier under the seat.  Alex sort of wanted to go down the slide, but as there were bigger kids on there, he preferred to be away from them on the bridge.

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One of my “Tick the list” items to see is a squirrel.  I only just found out that the grey ones are the dominant ones.  They are considered pests, as they were introduced and have taken over the habitat and food supply from the Red squirrel.  Mark remembered where he had seen a lot of squirrels, so we headed up and sure enough, there they were.

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We discovered that there were carvings of animals in fallen tree trunks, which was pretty clever.  There were lovely wooded areas and streams.  This park is a treasure for Manchester families.

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Our next stop was the Animal Centre. It was free to enter, which was good, as there weren’t a lot of animals, mostly birds.  There were some pigs, a couple of goats and an alpaca (or maybe it was a llama).  There were runner ducks, chickens on a tractor and a few peacocks.  So pretty much a walk through and out the other side. 

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The Animal Centre is in the courtyard of the administration centre in The Stables, which also houses a café.

We headed over to one of the fields where a fair had been set up with rides for kids.  There were a couple of food stalls, so we decided to get sausage hotdogs and sit under a tree for a picnic.  It was a lovely spot for people watching both at the fairgrounds, but also walking around.  What was really lovely was to see that there were a lot of multigenerational family groups with kids, their parents and also at least one grandparent.  It was lovely that Alex now has that and love that I have it too.

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Once lunch was over, we walked to Heaton Hall and its Orangery.  Along the front of this is a wall with a drop down one side.  The wall is called a Ha Ha, and it is designed to keep the landowner’s cows from coming up onto the manicured lawns.  Now it is a very cool wall to walk along, especially if you are 2.

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The garden outside the Orangery was filled with beautiful bright Begonias.  So much colour and large flowers.  It was stunning.

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The Temple was our next stop. It isn’t actually a temple, more a lookout from the highest point in Manchester. While Alex and Mark walked around the building structure, I took in the view.  From up here, Nat pointed out Manchester city – the cranes on the buildings being the clearest landmark.

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Back down the hill and Alex decided that he wanted to reclimb the hill and it was Nat’s turn to accompany him.  I thought he might turn around and run back down the hill, but luckily he took it at a much safer pace.

We continued our walk, starting to make our way back to the carpark via the boating lake and the tram stop.  We fed our bread to the Canada Goose on the bank of the lake and then as it was almost 4.30 pm, time for the last tram ride of the day, we walked along the path that was beside the track.  We were able to see the tram as it made its way through the trees.

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It had been a fantastic afternoon.  I really enjoyed being with Alex, Nat and Mark.  So it was suggested that we get a pub tea on the way home. We stopped in at the Premier Inn Brewers Fayre Stable Gate restaurant. That was nice too, although, I suspect we were actually at the end of the lunch service, rather than the start of dinner, as they were running out of soft drinks from the help yourself dispenser and the carvery was pretty low on options.

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It was however a nice way to end a fantastic afternoon.

My first outing with Alex, Nat and Mark.