Cadbury World and Into Birmingham

Thursday 27th and Friday 28th July 2017 at Bournville and Birmingham.
Our original plan had been to go to Cadbury World on Thursday but, when we tried to book tickets, we found that they were sold out! Change of plan. So we booked for Friday morning and decided to go into Birmingham by train today to do some shopping. Bournville station is painted in Cadbury colours!

Having arrived in the centre of Birmingham, we headed for M&S where we had a snack lunch before getting a "few bits". Luckily M&S was not far from the station in Birmingham and MM was not far from the station at Bournville. A relaxing afternoon and evening followed.

Friday dawned sunny and we made an early start to get to Cadbury World by 9:30 when it opened. Cadbury World is just on the other side of the canal and railway, but it's a long walk all round the huge factory site to get there!

We were here four years ago on MM, so we knew what to expect. The "experience" starts with the history of chocolate and the story of the Cadbury brothers. In one area, Stephen Davies and Michael Huggins were promoting a nine-day charity cycle ride that they are doing in September from John O Groats to Lands End, raising funds for seven good causes. They happily posed for M's camera.

Everywhere you looked, everything was painted in Cadbury purple - even the bannisters on the stairs.

At one point there is a ride through a fantasy cocoa bean world - a bit like "It's a Small World" at Disneyworld but populated with anthropomorphic cocoa beans! It was great fun.

In the demonstration area, a young man was showing how chocolates are made by hand and proving that they won't fall out of the mould by inverting it over chidren's heads. No doubt the children would have been delighted if they had fallen out! Of course, because of the "Elf", no-one was allowed to taste the demonstration chocolate - shame.

We were fascinated by the lady making chocolate fashion shoes, pouring a measured amount of liquid chocolate into a mould and then swirling it around to make sure the mould was evenly coated.

The basic shoes looked beautiful and are eventually hand decorated before being sold in the shop.

At the end of the tour is the "World's Biggest Cadbury shop" stuffed with every kind of chocolate, sweets and memorabilia. Bliss.

M offered to buy R an 850g Milk Chocolate bar (at half price) but R decided that he would resist the temptation. (note from M: "Why?")

M was equally taken with the chocolate tea pots. "They are not useless" she said, "because they are delicious". But she too resisted temptation (note from R: "Why?"). 

We had lunch in the cafeteria, which offered very good food at reasonable prices, before making our way back to MM with the free samples and just a few purchases.

Back at MM, we set off for the centre of Birmingham, which took us about an hour and a half, and arrived just before the forecasted rain started.
Right in the centre, between Gas Street Basin and Brindley Place, is the "Worcester Bar", which is a seven foot wide strip that separated the Worcester & Birmingham Canal in Gas Street Basin, and the Birmingham Canal Navigation in Brindley Place.

For years the BCN would not allow there to be any direct connection between the two canals and everything had to be unloaded from the boats on one side of the bar, carried across the bar and loaded into boats on the other side of the bar! Eventually common sense prevailed and an act of Parliament in 1815 forced the BCN to make a connection so that boats could cruise from one canal to the other.

We found a mooring on the western end of Brindley Place and, to our surprise, discovered that we had moored right underneath a Costa, so a visit seemed to be in order!

The sign on the wall was very welcoming!

While looking on the internet, we discovered that there was a Wagamama restaurant within a couple of hundred yards of our mooring. As it is M's favourite restaurant, we braved the rain and went out to dinner there. A rare treat as we do not often eat out.

Today: 4 miles, 0 locks and 6.4 hours (2 days).
Trip: 123 miles, 138 locks and 106.2 hours.