Isle of Man

There’s a well known Welsh nursery rhyme which featured the Isle of Man…

Fuoch chi erioed yn morio?
Wel do mewn padell ffrio.
Cwythodd y gwynt fi’r Isle of Man
A dyna lle bum i’n crio.

… translates as “Have you ever been sailing?, Wel yes, in a frying pan; the wind blew me to the Isle of Man, and that’s where I was crying”. Now let me tell you, I was not in fact crying in the Isle of Man as I had a blast! In this post I’m giving you an overview

Isle of Man Steam Packet Ferry

No I didn’t travel over in a frying pan either, instead I caught a ferry from Liverpool to Douglas. I took my car so I could do some train chasing on the other side. It cost me £398.50 to take my car over for 5 days. I believe that Isle of Man Steam Packet Company had a 5 day travel package for the Summer holidays. Worked for me!

The ferry port in Douglas is at the South end of the promenade and it was so easy to get from the ferry to out hotel. For this visit I opted for a Premier Inn stay as I was trying to keep costs down. However there are plenty of lovely looking hotels and places to stay which next time I might try and book.

Go Explore Card

Now this was a fantastic way to explore the Isle of Man’s sights. There are various different cards available including some for locals and some for visitors. I opted for a Go Explore Heritage card for me (£72) and Go Explore cards each for the girls (£26 each). So for the grand sum of £124 I got to travel on all the heritage railways AND visit the Manx Heritage sites – in my case, House of Manannan and The Great Laxey Wheel. Honestly this was the best purchase I made.

Heritage Railways

Let’s be honest, the main reason I had wanted to visit the Isle of Man is to see all their heritage railways. I was told “it’s railway heaven” and they weren’t wrong! With SIX different heritage railways you can’t really disagree! I won’t go into each railway in this post as I’ll write about them all separately soon, the six railways are:

1. Isle of Man Steam Railway
2. Manx Electric Railway
3. Snaefell Mountain Railway
4. Groudle Glen Railway
5. The Great Laxey Mine Railway
6. Douglas Bay Horse Tramway

For those who’re interested in railways (which I assume is most of you otherwise you might be at the wrong site) then in August there’s also the Isle of Man Transport Festival. That was happening the week before my visit but I couldn’t make the dates work – worth a visit one day I’d say!

(It was also on my 2024 Railway Bucket List)

Manx Heritage Sites

As I mentioned above, the Go Explore Heritage card gave me access to various heritage sites on the island. The one I was most interested in was The Great Laxey Wheel (pictured above), but it also gave me access to the museums. I was told to visit the House of Manannan by my friends as there’s a family connection. I didn’t make it to Peel Castle on this visit but I’ll have to go back again.

Activities for the Kiddos

Now I couldn’t forget to plan for some activities for the girls. They came with me to the trains so it was only fair I did something for them. So I kept it simple by taking them to the National Sports Centre to have some fun in the fun pool. And as the weather was pretty rubbish on the Thursday we followed the pool session with a visit to Palace Cinema.

The weather cheered up the following day so we ended up at Curragh’s Wildlife Park where I met a very handsome pelican and the girls were overjoyed to have finally seen a red panda. Oh and there’s also another little railway there but alas it wasn’t operating the day we visited. We had thought about going to the ropeworks course but I ran out of time!

Other Things

Other things we did whilst over there was stop at Sulby Reservoir to take in the views (see above), drive along the part of the TT Course, took in the view of Peel Castle, walked around Douglas South Quay and to Marine Drive.

All in all I absolutely loved our trip over to the Isle of Man. There’s a lot I didn’t get a chance to do – visit Castletown, Cregneash and even more railways! It just means I have to go back!