Blue Planet Aquarium
Sharks over a moving walkway tunnel, all under cover. A dependable answer to a washout forecast that still feels like a proper day out.
Hadlow Road Station (Wirral Way)
- Cost
- Free
- Ages
- 2 to 14
- Where
- Ellesmere Port, Cheshire
- Weather
- Mostly outdoors
- Booking
- Just turn up
The trains stopped running long ago, but Hadlow Road Station in Willaston has been kept as if the next one is due: the waiting room and ticket office are restored to look as they might have in the 1950s. It sits at the Cheshire end of the Wirral Way, the path laid on the old Hooton to West Kirby railway line, which makes it a good start for a walk or bike ride with nothing coming the other way except other bikes.
From the station the path heads for Parkgate, with picnic stops along the way. Past Leahurst there's an embankment with views, then a rock cutting in Neston where tree roots split the sandstone and you can still see the pick marks from when it was dug by hand. Children like the pick marks more than the views. Cross the Millennium Bridge in Neston for the first look over the Dee estuary, then carry on to Parkgate and an ice cream on the front.
The council's suggested ride, Signals and Saltmarsh, is a gentle 12-mile round trip from Willaston to the estuary and back on the National Cycle Network, which is a lot for small legs, so turn round when the complaints start. There are toilets at Hadlow Road and refreshments in Willaston, Neston and Parkgate. The car parks along the Way are locked at night and have a 2.2 metre height barrier, which matters if the bikes are on the roof.
What it costs: Free. Car parks along the Wirral Way are locked at night and have a 2.2 metre (7ft 2in) height barrier.
Know before you go
- The car park height barrier is 2.2 metres. Bikes on a roof rack will not fit under it.
- Look for the hand-cut pick marks in the rock cutting at Neston. It's the bit children remember.
- Save the ice cream for Parkgate: it's the reward at the end of the outward leg.
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