Day 2 Sun. Oct. 25

57 F, Sunny! and WINDY!!

Up at 7am GMT(BWT). Sun outside at last. But Cold! Ah, but a nice warm cup of.. instant coffee?? Later we get dressed and check out. Decided that we had too many suitcases, so we put the small roller case inside Kels big roller case and packed stuff around it to keep it from shifting. Got our rail passes validated and head on over to platform 15 to catch the train to Holyhead and the Stena Ferry. We basically followed the crowds.

They all marched over towards 15 and then use the doors marked "NO ENTRY" to access the correct platform.
Well, when in Rome. . .
Board the first car "B" which was a smoking car, stow our luggage in the rack and find a seat. The train leaves, ON TIME, and 5 1/2 hrs later (just a bit before 3pm) we arrive in Holyhead, Wales. The trains run on time, but the ferry does NOT. To top it off one of the sapphires pops out of Kels wedding ring and vanishes into the trains carpet, never to be seen again. The ferry is loading to leave, but its full from all the people who couldn't get on from the previous 2 canceled trips. We have a choice of trying for the 6:30pm ferry (which is expected to leave after 8pm) and arrive in Ireland at 10:30pm with no hotel reservations, or trying for standby on the 8:55am the next morning. We opt for the standby.

Lugging the luggage behind us we trudge into downtown (?) Holyhead and Len goes ahead to find us a B&B while Kel babysits 400lbs of excess luggage. He succeeds wonderfully and finds us a room above The Crown pub.

The room is en-suite, but a tad small so the luggage is put in the bathroom while we're in the bedroom, and on the bed when we use the bathroom. We go down to do a little sightseeing (the town is really cute!) and snap a few pics to kill some time before going back to the pub for dinner. It's quite busy now but we find a spot and have our Mixed Grill (Len) and Steak & Kidney pie (Kel), 2 pots of tea and loads of chips. Very nummy and filling.

Assorted hard and sudden showers thru dinner. After dinner its too dark and wet to explore (and Holyhead rolls up the sidewalks about 7:30pm) so we climb back up the little stairway to our room to watch a bit of news and an early night. Have to be up early to get on the standby list no later than 7am.

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