Day 6 started very much like most of the other Travelodge stops.  I woke early, finished off typing in the route into the satnav for that day, a quick social media update on the previous days shenanigans, a shower, a royal battle to get Alex out of bed and in the shower, mad packing up session of the Chadwick's bags and get to car park 10 minutes after George who has already stowed his roof, packed his bags and had a quick puff on his vape.

However, this morning was a little different as Gordon was there too chatting with George and we had chance to get a fairly decent breakfast bap and cup of tea/coffee at Starbucks situated next door.



Today was a 7 pier day but a relatively short pier pressure distance of just 212 miles. This did include for a trip across the notorious Dartford crossing on the iconic QE2 bridge and a few pre-arranged meetings with officials and press. Once again the buggy gods were smiling on us and the weather was blue sky all the way.

A quick fuel top up in the BP next door and we finally head off just a few minutes behind the pre-determined schedule.



After 5 days the published schedule was proving to be a little on the optimistic side, as most days were over-running. What we didn't know at this point was just how much today's schedule would be ripped up, eaten, thrown back up and flushed down the toilet by the day's end.

The first stop of the day was a simple 18 mile jog down to Harwich Ha'penny Pier where we were to be met by the local Harwich Historic Society & pier trust, who had replied to our e-mail we had sent through a couple of weeks before. They we extremely excited to meet us and had arranged a local photo call with local press.



We were also looking forward to catching up with one of our favourite international bugistas – Ruben from the Netherlands. Ruben, along with Patrick form Belgium, has really looked after the British buggy contingent when we have visited the International Buggy Weekends over the past 5 or so years, being our own personal guides, translators and cultural liaison to ensure we don't make too many European faux pas' (or at least unacceptable ones that is).  Ruben had amazingly committed to joining our journey for a few days, having never visited our hilly isle before. Having never driven on the correct side of the road before, Ruben had opted to use his T4 camper conversion over his buggy, which proved to be a great support and tail end blocking vehicle over the next few days.

I have been to Harwich a few times in my life, but only ever to the international ferry port on my way across to the International Buggy Weekends. I have to be honest that I didn't even realise there was a proper Harwich town just a couple of miles around the coast from the port.

A little before 9:30am the three buggies roll up to the front of Harwich Ha'penny pier to be greeted not only by a large smiling Dutch guy in a loud orange t-shirt, but by the Harwich Historic Society, the local press and amazingly, the local Town Crier. A brilliant welcome by this lovely charming pier.







Harwich was not a traditional sea side, full of amusements, type pier but is actually an operating foot passenger ferry terminal, taking people across to Felixstowe and Shotley since the 1850's as well as the local RNLI base. The name Ha'penny comes from the original 1/2d toll that was charged.  The ticket office is beautifully kept by the Harwich Society by the trust and is the original 19th century building as well as a nice café on the pier too.









After a quick cuppa and chat with the Historic Society we are off all too soon heading for our second stop of the day at Walton on the Naze. We are now 3 buggies with Ruben in his T4 acting as our tail gunner. Just another quick 16 mile, 30 minute trip and we arrive at Walton on the Naze. Ruben is really excited as we pass through villages called Great Holland and Holland on Sea and you can see the architecture is definitely Dutch barn influenced.

As a Midlander, prior to researching for Pier Pressure I admit I had never even heard of Walton on the Naze, let alone known there was a pier there. The town itself was small with nice narrow streets and quirky little shops as well as the more established high street names and plenty of noise reverberating off the buildings to announce our arrival in the town.

The town literally sits on the coast but at a higher level, with the sea appearing at the end of the main street. We turn right before getting wet to see the pier stretching out to sea. The entrance to the pier is down a narrow steep access road which clearly states vehicles are prohibited. So, true to form we drive down the access ramp to the front door of the pier.





Walton on the Naze pier is nor one of the prettiest we have visited and was basically a large box, reminiscent of an old Homebase / MECCA Bingo façade from the 1980's but painted yellow and red. I'm not being unkind, it's just the pier could do with a re-vamp and restoration.

Unfortunately, the building opposite is being restored and there is a large scaffolding limiting the space in front of the pier. There aren't many people around at the pier, however next to the pier is a gated promenade that provides access to hundreds of brightly coloured beach huts which make a great site in the bright sunshine.

The gate is open so we take our opportunity to drive along the promenade to get our pier shot with a nice side view of the pier in the background. 



Almost immediately we are told by everyone we meet that cars shouldn't be down the promenade after 9:00 am and the gate shouldn't have been open. But when the gate is closed by 'the man' then it won't be opened again until 5:00pm. As we have a long way to go and many piers yet to see today, Gordon kindly agrees to park his buggy across the open gate to stop us getting locked in.

The background of brightly coloured and many tiered beach huts help create some nice pictures and I also back my buggy down a slip way to get some really close to the sea shots. 











At this point a big guy appears who we initially assume is 'the man' but it turns out he is the Pier Master and / or owner. He tells us about the big plans for the pier including glazing all the sides of the big yellow box and opening more restaurants on the pier.

He asks if we can wait around for a couple of hours and he will put it up on his Twitter and Facebook accounts for people to come and meet the buggies during the day!! Unfortunately, we obviously have to decline before saddling up once more and leaving Walton in our rear view mirrors as we head off to our next port of call just 8 miles away at Clacton.

The drive to Clacton is nice, the day is getting warmer and we are making good time, turning onto the 3 mile long Parade to the pier at 10:50am and waving at anyone that will wave back. The day so far has been great.





The Pier soon comes into view and after initially missing the entrance road down to the pier, we do a quick U-turn and drive down to the front of the pier. The area to the front of Clacton Pier is quite large with loads of space and plenty of parked cars around, whilst there is a van delivering to the pier and off to the side is the weekly bin collection taking place (remember this).



Despite e-mailing Clacton Pier a couple of weeks before (remember we had already met up with the Historic Society and Town Crier in Harwich), we had heard nothing back. There was nothing new about that in that we had only received about 30% replies to our e-mails. So in these instances we park up, Ruth jumps out to find someone official and everything is normally fine and dandy. So we parked up outside the café leaving loads of space and being respectful as normally and Ruth goes to speak to the security guard in the entrance door.

However almost instantly we get a visit from the pier manger storming out in her high heels and little black dress with walkie talkie radio in hand.



I was aware when organising the trip we perhaps would not always be able to get near the piers or perhaps would be asked to park somewhere else, but I hadn't expected such out and out rudeness from any pier. Little miss stroppy pants was all guns blazing whilst all the time waving the walkie talking radio aerial in our direction. "You can't park there", "I knew nothing about this", "we are having deliveries all day", "the bin wagon can't get out" , "I want you to leave straight away". I did reply that we had sent e-mails to all piers and she replied she saw all the emails and hadn't seen it. I did say I used the email they had registered with the national Pier Society and if that was wrong I suggest they get it updated.

As you can see from the pictures we were really blocking everyone in and causing such a nuisance !!







After some 'debate' we were allowed to have a quick picture, with the security guard ordered to make sure we left straight away (he looked very uncomfortable boarding on embarrassed at this point) and when we asked if Alex could just visit the toilet before we left we were told "no, I want those cars gone" by the Queen of jobs worths. 

Just around the time we are ordered to leave Mark and Sue Watson arrive in their very tidy white Volksrod. They don't even have chance to get out the buggy before we are on our way off to a much better reception at Southend.

In all honesty I knew we may be pushing our luck at some places but a nice polite "I understand what you guys are doing but if you don't mind we are very busy today so we can't accommodate you", would have been fine by us.

All we can really say about the experience is Boo Clacton... Nice pier, shame about the face.

We are now 4 buggies and 1 T4 heading towards and around Colchester on the A133, A120 and A12. To avoid an Alex bladder disaster (boo Clacton) we pull in to a McDonalds right next to Colchester United's ground off the A12. This gives us chance to say high to Mark and Sue and discuss the 'welcome' we had just received.



Although we had advertised our route and suggested fuel stops, both George and myself we doing good miles per gallon and we were missing out every other fuel stop. Luckily Mark informed us that there were likely to be two buggies waiting for us at the next advertised petrol stop at Witham which we were going to miss out as it involved pulling off the A12 for a couple of miles.

Waiting for us at the Texaco garage were Colin in his black JAS and Toby in his metalflake purple sidewinder. Almost without breaking stride the 6 buggies and Rubin in his T4 re-join the A12 and head on down to Southend on Sea to visit the longest pier on our journey. At this point we are actually slightly ahead of schedule due to the curtailed stop at Clacton.

I have only ever visited Southend once before in my life and that was last year to pick up a petrol powered go kart as a donor for Alex's mini manx. I remember from that day that Southend was a very busy place which took us a fair while to get into and out of. Today was no different. As we hit the A127 we came to a virtual standstill with 2 long stationary lines of traffic.



Luckily we had a local in Mark with us and he willingly took over the lead and led us through the back streets and onto the seafront to reach the pier.



The journey still took longer than hoped and when we arrived at Southend Gordon announces that the QEII crossing was closed due to an attempted suicide the night before (by driving a car off the bridge) which had damaged guard railing and an expansion joint. This was causing massive delays due to everything having to use the Dartford Tunnel. Great.  Luckily we had planned for quite a long stop at Southend on Sea for lunch and we hoped that with this extra time it would give the chance for the bridge to clear.

In complete contrast to the previous pier's welcome, Southend on Sea Pier couldn't have been more different. They had replied to our email and we met up with part of the Pier team on the Esplanade.



They had arranged for us to park up in a paved area off Pier Hill and even allowed George and myself to park on the pier boards above the Esplanade below. They were really happy to have us and added pictures to their facebook and twitter pages.












Whilst in Southend one of the guys had had a message off Paul Ridgwell who had turned up at Clacton (Boo Clacton) and had been waiting for us to arrive. What he didn't know is that we had already been turfed off. Paul then tries hard to catch us up at Southend but is spotted driving along the Esplanade below us heading in the opposite direction, not knowing we had been allowed access to the pier proper.

Finally we manage to get a message to him and 20 or so minutes after we arrive Paul joins us at the pier in his lovely dark blue manx and with the lovely Ellie, his faithful German Sheppard, in the passenger seat. Funnily enough Paul didn't have the problem of anyone trying to climb in his buggy without asking.



On that note, whilst we are all looking down over the brilliant Adventure Land below, George turns around to see some guy putting kids in his buggy and taking photos without the basic courtesy of asking. After a 'discussion' the guy reluctantly makes a donation to our cause for the benefit of putting his kids in the buggy. What is it with people? In fact we did get asked a lot around the whole trip if the buggies were for hire or for playing in ?

All in all we spent just over an hour at Southend on Sea pier, grabbing a quick pizza lunch and nice cuppa before we thought of heading off to cross the Thames via the QEII bridge. Luckily Gordon had checked the local traffic reports which stated that the bridge was back open and 2 lanes were now moving across the bridge – big relief.

We still had 3 piers to visit on the day, a further 110 miles to go and a planned meeting with the Mayor of Canterbury and the local pier trust at Herne Bay so the convoy of now 7 buggies and the T4 pick our way back out of Southend through busy traffic and many many sets of traffic lights.



Mark took the lead once more and vowed to get us onto the A13 towards the M25 and the bridge, before turning off and heading for home. Paul, Toby and Colin were also planning to head home as they all lived north of the river. Unfortunately we get split as some traffic lights leaving Mark, Geroge, Gordon, Toby and myself heading one way with Colin, Paul and Ruben at the back heading another.

Thankfully we know Ruben has the planned route and a satnav, so we are safe in the knowledge if all else fails we will meet him at the next pier.

Mark and Toby peel off as we join the A13 and off towards the M25 and the QEII bridge. The first we realise there is something wrong is when we arrive on a massive queue of lorries sat in the inside lane. About a mile from the junction with the M25 a truly nice lady lets the 3 buggies into the queue ahead of her.

We assume the queue will soon start moving as the bridge was now back open... yeah right. It turns out the lady had not turned a wheel for over 3 hours so surely the queue should move soon right? Well no and now it was evening work peak traffic time, which was simply adding to the misery.





We end up standing on the road just staring at a never ending queue of cars and lorries, I even give the nice lady some chocolate and sweets as she has three kids in the car. Although the inside lane is stationary the middle and outside lanes are still moving.

At least it's nice, sunny and warm and I take the opportunity to re-sent my original e-mail to the  Clacton Pier witch, just to prove a point I suppose. As an aside I am still awaiting my reply (although the automated reply did say it may take up to 5 working days!!). During the next 2 ¾ hours we move precisely 2 whole car lengths, gaps formed by cars deciding to pull into the outside lane and find an alternative route. All along Ruth kept in touch with the guy from Herne Bay pier trust, letting him know we may be a little late. Alex also settles in to 2 1/2 hours uninterrupted Nintendo DS time so in all honesty he really didn't care we were stuck.

Surprisingly I get a text from Ruben saying he has just arrived at Gravesend Pier and where are we as he can't find us. In turns out when we finally catch up with him he had followed Paul and Colin out of Southend not realising they were heading home and ended up joining the M25 much further north. This had proved to be a stroke of genius as the M25 was actually moving whist us suckers on the A13 were just sat, waiting and sitting and waiting and sitting and waiting and...

Finally the gang make the decision to pull out into the moving traffic and head under the M25 and into the centre of London to maybe cross via the Blackwell Tunnel. It just felt good to be moving again as I really and truly hate sitting still for hours in a traffic.



George takes over the lead as he knows London far better than me and a couple of miles before the Blackwell Tunnel he pulls up alongside a lorry and politely asks the driver if he would let us in to the queue. The reply went along the lines of "Bollo***, I've already been waiting 2 hours geeza, apples and pears, me old china" – or something like that. We have no choice but to carry on into the centre of London. Thankfully we are now outside the congestion charge time.

I retake the lead as I have the satnav and head off into a long tunnel. Just before a big white van had pulled in between George and myself and when it finally pulls out and overtakes me, George is nowhere to be seen in my rear view. I am now deep inside a tunnel, heading into London central with just Alex with me for company. I admit I did panic a little but thankfully the walkie talkies pay for themselves in that moment as I hear Ruth's voice saying they can see us in the distance and at the same time I catch a glimpse of George's flashing orange lights quite far behind.

Looking at the Sat Nav the next possible way to cross the river is Tower Bridge. As we couldn't cross the iconic new QEII bridge it seemed fitting that we should cross on possibly the most well know bridge in the world. Time is now moving on towards 7pm. We are actually now further away from our next destination at Gravesend Pier than we were a hour before.

The Tower of London and the Shard soon looms into view and turning left, thankfully Tower Bridge is relatively congestion free.




It is in fact brilliant to get the opportunity to take the buggies over such a historic monument, making for some great photos that none of us even imagined would have happened at the start of the day.







Finally we are south of the Thames and heading back towards the M25 south of Dartford. Once again the Walkie talkies are invaluable and between us we manage to navigate back east and eventually cross under the M25 and it's still stationary traffic around 7:45pm, some 4 hours later than planned. The whole detour has added a mere 36 miles to our daily journey.

I later received a twitter post from the nice lady who originally let us in to the queue all those hours ago and it turned out she sat for a total of 9 hours that day before eventually moving off, so it appears we did make the right decision in the end.

The sun is now low in the sky and the heat of the day is rapidly disappearing. We are still all in our t-shirts and we are now all starting to get colder than we would like so as soon as we pull off the A2 and head towards Gravesend town we stop at the first opportunity to find a toilet and put some extra layers on. Thank you Sainsburys Gravesend.

We finally arrive at Gravesend Pier at 8:30pm and meet up with our Dutch friend who has had some introduction to driving in the UK already today. Ruben had used his time wisely and managed to get some food whilst waiting for us.

Gravesend is the oldest surviving cast iron pier in the world and was a ferry terminal until the late 1990's when the council bought and restored it, now leasing the whole pier as a fancy restaurant and bar.



Ironically the long delay north of the river possibly put us in a much better position at Gravesend. The small car park area to the front was gated off which meant we had to park on the double yellow lines to the front of the gate, right on the side of one of the main one way routes through the town, on the A226, at a narrow point in the road. If we had arrived as planned around 4pm on a Wednesday it would have been unlikely we would have got the pictures we got due to traffic.

The sun was just setting and the lighting was brilliant for some nice photos at the pier.





It was now around 8:45 in the evening and we still had 72 miles to go and 2 piers left to visit, so without spending too long at Gravesend we all jump back in our motors and convoy up for the next 42 mile leg of our journey to Herne Bay. As time is getting on and Gordon has to return home to Hampshire today we try and get him to leave us at this point but he insists on carrying on and completing day 6 with us. Mad man but he is happy and we are happy to have him along.

We did pass over the River Medway on the Medway Viaduct, passing Rochester to the south but to be honest we don't remember much of the trip down to Herne Bay as it was basically a 55mph slog down the M2 and A299 and as the sun had now set it was dark. For the first time on our whole trip we were going to be visiting a pier at night. We knew it may happen but hoped it wouldn't, although we did think it would be more likely due to a breakdown and not due to excessive traffic.

We finally arrive at Herne Bay Pier just before 10:00pm, around 4 ½ later than originally planned. This was a real shame as Ruth had kept in constant touch with our contact at the pier trust throughout the day and they had arranged a meeting not only with the Chairman of the trust but also the Mayor of Canterbury too. They had also arranged for a fish and chip supper for us all from the new fish and chip stall that had also opened on the pier that day. We were gutted we couldn't get there on time, even more so as we found out later that the mayor had waited until around 7:30pm before heading home.

Unfortunately, when we arrived the pier was in the dark and all closed up for the day as would be expected. There were very few folk around, just a few late night revellers visiting the interestingly named pier amusement arcade on the opposite side of Central Parade and the late night pizza place next door.  In front of the pier is a large round flower bed and paving area with small wall restricting access any closer to the pier. Not for the first time we drive up around the flower bed and set the buggies up as close to the pier as we get for our required proof of visit number photo.





Whilst we are doing this Ruben kindly offers to go and get some pizzas ordered for us at the place opposite. Just as we are finishing up the photos a man walks over to us and we assume he is going to tell us off for driving around the flower bed and parking up on the footpath. It turns out that Andrew is the chairman of the Pier Trust and he had waited for us to arrive to welcome us to his pier. He had just given up on us when he heard us arrive.

He surprises us further by asking if we would like to drive onto the pier and goes and opens up the gates. He also shows us the way round to the pier entrance through a small access road disguised by wheelie bins. We can't quite believe we have been allowed on the beautifully restored pier and Andrew allows us to drive up to the end of the pier up against the traditional carousel. Unfortunately he doesn't have the authority to turn the carousel on but we still feel very privileged to be allowed onto the pier in the dark.




Andrew explains that they had promoted our trip for a few days on their facebook page and had put up posters on the pier about our visit (are you taking note Clacton?) With the Mayoral visit too, this had meant that around 5:30pm, our original expected time of arrival, the pier had been packed with people. The weather had made it even more popular and he classed it as a bank holiday Sunday size of crowd. Such a shame someone had tried to drive off the QEII bridge the night before unaware of the devastation their actions would cause to so many people that day.



Ruben appears with the pizzas and we enjoy a rather surreal evening meal leaning against the buggies at 10:30pm on a dark pier.





Andrew was a very interesting guy and a local councillor too. He explained about the history of the pier, the plans to reconnect it to the isolated pier head a couple of hundred metres out to sea and the restoration undertaken by the trust to bring the pier back into use. He also told us about the ongoing wheelie bins wars with the pizza place opposite and we suddenly feel embarrassed about our choice of food.

Every 4 hours I had now put Alex on GLYMPSE duty ensuring we stay logged into the App so people can track our progress. I have since fund put that many people already knew of our forced delay near Dartford just from tracking us on GLYMPSE. I have also had people since ask me what we were doing at Herne Bay that late at night as the GLYMPSE tracker showed loads of mad wiggles. As the app tracked my phone and it was in my pocket, the saw us walking about on the pier etc.

We perhaps stay longer at Herne Bay they we should but with Andrew's brilliant hospitality ironically we just lost track of time. It was now around 10:45pm and we still had 30+ miles to go and Deal Pier still to visit. We actually manage Gordon to see a little sense and after two full days with us on our Pier Pressure odyssey, we say farewell to our good friend as he heads back the 110+ miles home.

Thankfully the roads are now empty and the two pier pressure buggies and Ruben head off along the A299 and A256 down to Deal. It amazes me that in an open topped buggy doing 55mph Alex can just fall asleep and as soon as we leave Herne Bay he is truly and deeply in the land of nod. I was really looking forward to visiting Deal but in the dark I can honestly say I don' know what Deal looks like.



We arrive at the pier around 11:40pm and other than a couple of guys staggering out of the local drinking establishment opposite, there was no-one around. I wonder if the next morning they thought "how much did we have to drink, I'm sure I saw two beach buggies driving up the footpath through the flower beds last night – perhaps I should lay off the booze for a while?".

Well, we drove up the narrow footpath around the flower beds and managed to park right up against the closed gates of the pier atop of the entrance steps on the promenade. We wake Alex up and thankfully Ruben is on hand to handle the cameras for us to ensure we get our latest proof of visit photo. Alex has touched every pier so far and we make sure he touches Deal too. I'm not actually sure he woke up as he still has no memory of visiting Deal Pier, although his eyes are open on the photo.



To top it off there is a fantastic moon and cloud formation over the calm sea, although the photos don't do it justice.


Without s[ending too long at the pier we set off on the last 6 miles of our Day 6 journey down to our hotel for the night at St Margaret on Cliffe, just north of Dover. Originally we had planned to visit the white cliffs and get some great photos, but obviously by now we just wanted our beds (and it was dark anyway).

We finally arrived at the St Margaret on Cliffe Hotel at 12:10am on Thursday morning after one hell of a day. The hotel is part of a holiday park and right in the middle of a large number of static caravans so I'm sure they all really appreciated the sound of two buggies arriving that late at night.

The hotel itself was great, with an indoor pool, large restaurant and bar. I suppose it would have been a great place to wind down after a long trip but obviously by now it was all closed up tight. The night porter welcomed us and checked us in and amazingly even allowed Ruben to park up his camper on the hotel car park for the night free of charge. This was a great relief for Ruben who was worried he needed to find somewhere to stay. Our rooms were some of the nicest we had on the whole trip and I would highly recommend the hotel for anyone looking for a quick one night stay before heading off to Europe from Dover.

We had managed a full 6 days with the roofs off and other than a couple of squeaky shock absorbers, no major breakdowns or issues with our trusty steads. We quickly unpack the buggies, put the hoods on and say good night to Ruben.

We forgo our nightly cup of tea and daily catch up chat with George as we all head off to bed, reflecting on a day that had everything including amazing welcomes, town criers, driving onto piers, road closures, detours, great support from friends new and old, night visits to piers and our first rejection.

I went to sleep thinking that will be one hell of a story to tell and write about some day.

That was an epic day (boo Clayton) this is a brilliant read and loving the pictures. 

"Surprisingly I get a text from Rubin saying he has just arrived at Gravesend Pier and where are we as he can't find us. In turns out when we finally catch up with him he had followed Paul and Colin out of Southend not realising they were heading home and ended up joining the M25 much further north. This had proved to be a stroke of genius as the M25 was actually moving whist us suckers on the A13 were just sat, waiting and sitting and waiting and sitting and waiting and..."

it was not a stroke of genius, it's an error I made, witch (for the first time ever) turned out to be a good thing.

i'd heard of Dartford crossing, didn't know of of what and i'm glad to have had the full experience

I think I would leave a few comments about Miss Stroppy Pants on their Facebook page, because cars being in the way is one thing - but to refuse a small child to use the toilet is something I think the pier owners would be very embarrassed to read about

https://www.facebook.com/clactonpier/

Next time I am in Clacton I will ask for a word with the pier manager, if it is her I will tell her what I think of her, if it is a proper grown up I will tell them about her and the fame she has earned for the pier.

Guess that is her photobombing one of the pics so I know what to look for

Great write up, wish I could have been with you but on our way to Prague that day

Quote from: Dave DND on November 16, 2016, 05:48:57 PM
I think I would leave a few comments about Miss Stroppy Pants on their Facebook page, because cars being in the way is one thing - but to refuse a small child to use the toilet is something I think the pier owners would be very embarrassed to read about

https://www.facebook.com/clactonpier/

Dave thanks for putting that on their page.

Trouble is its just Ruth's word against hers so it will go no where probably.

Saying that the other lady's story was interesting too about being told to move her kids buggy (stroller) at the cafe. She said they said to her 'We don't have buggies in here'...seems quite ironic I thought

I am still waiting for my reply to my second e-mail too.

Quote from: Chad on November 17, 2016, 11:37:58 AM

Quote from: Dave DND on November 16, 2016, 05:48:57 PM
I think I would leave a few comments about Miss Stroppy Pants on their Facebook page, because cars being in the way is one thing - but to refuse a small child to use the toilet is something I think the pier owners would be very embarrassed to read about

https://www.facebook.com/clactonpier/

Dave thanks for putting that on their page.

Trouble is its just Ruth's word against hers so it will go no where probably.

Saying that the other lady's story was interesting too about being told to move her kids buggy (stroller) at the cafe. She said they said to her 'We don't have buggies in here'...seems quite ironic I thought

I am still waiting for my reply to my second e-mail too.

I think it has been removed 

No, its still there - I put it there both as a comment and as a review.

I wasn`t going to, but seeing that other story clearly shows that they have a bit of an attitude problem - and as someone who used to used to own and operate an Amusement Arcade, I also have a fair few contacts in that field, so will do my best to make sure that something gets back to the Pier Owners. Not wanting the cars blocking the front is kind of understandable, but refusing to let Alex use the toilet is just unforgivable.

At least its another bit of awareness and a Facebook link to the Charity page   

Quality read on the adventure!