Dancing with the stars

We’ve been learning to ballroom dance for several weeks now and at our last class we were asked if we would be available that weekend to go up to Blackpool to help out as volunteers at the University DanceSport Championships. It’s the biggest event of the year for all the uni teams and this year it was taking place at the Winter Gardens, a big venue in the middle of town.

The volunteering itself was a bit intense, as the day lasted from 8am to midnight (we didn’t know that it would be longer than working hours), but it was great to see the standard that we’re attempting to get up to! I think we’d actually need to practice rather than saying we were going to if we ever want to impress anyone...


We managed to escape a couple of times during the day for some food and to see a bit of Blackpool, but the following morning we had a few hours before the drive back to explore. It was great to be wandering around in the morning with hardly anyone else up (it was Sunday morning in a big party town so that wasn’t surprising!) and the tide was low so we could explore under the pier and all along the beach. It was brilliant to be by the sea again – even though Blackpool’s beach doesn’t really rate compared to NZ beaches!

The most fun was going to the pier though; we were the first on the Ferris wheel and laughed ourselves silly at the funny faces to stick your head through. We also spent £4 (although I was totally suckered in and would have spent a fortune!) on the dart throwing – man, those guys are good at what they do! We came away with two of the very cheapest toys, but they are some of the best airplane toys I’ve seen and have provided us with endless hours of amusement!


Check out the rest of the photos.