Dufus & Shirt...

...The Big Cardiff Weekend.

The ‘Doctor Who Experience’ was to close. Dufus and Shirt therefore made a plan to visit on its anti-penultimate weekend (having ‘Whooverville 9’ on the next weekend, and the final weekend being sold out). It being a Bank Holiday, the plan was for them to travel down separately on the Saturday, meet up and see a few Series 10 locations amongst the University buildings, spend Sunday morning at the Experience, before spotting more locations in the afternoon, and then visiting another costume exhibition at ‘The Time Machine’ in Bromyard on the Monday.

The Bank Holiday meant that both made slow progress due to traffic, with Shirt’s coach taking forever to get through outer Cardiff and drop him just by the University buildings. It was at this point that Shirt became aware of the gigantic flaw in their plans, namely that they had picked the weekend of ‘The Big Weekend’, a music event being run in conjunction with Pride Cymru, meaning that all the streets were packed with revellers. More of a problem was that the main stages had been erected directly in front of the buildings used as ‘Bristol University’ in Series 10, meaning that any path to them was blocked off by security staff, to keep out those without tickets. Shirt therefore contacted Dufus to rearrange their rendezvous to their hotel, as the original meet-up was to be at a car park behind the barriers. It also now became clear why all hotels had been charging a premium that weekend.

Finding the hotel after a number of wrong turns, Shirt checked it, and enquired about the hotel car park.

“There’s limited spaces in ours for £4 per day”, a member of staff told him, “or when that’s full, there’s a car park over there for £12 per day”.

Going up to his room and looking out of the window, Shirt could see only one space, which was under cover, and so might have been ‘Staff Only’.

Fifteen minutes later, Dufus called to say he was in the hotel car park, and Shirt went down to join him. The one remaining space seemed to be for Electric Cars, but Dufus parked there, and asking at reception they were told that he could park there. Having input Dufus’ registration into the parking system, they went up to the room.

The sleeping arrangements comprised a Double bed with a bunk bed over the top of it, with Shirt giving the bed to Dufus.

Luggage stowed they wandered out into central Cardiff, passing hundreds of tweens and their parents queuing for 'Paw Patrol Live' at the Motorpoint Arena, visiting Naughty Asteroid International and the arcade where Bilis’ shop was in ‘Torchwood – Series 1’. Next they retraced Shirt’s steps to the University. Having confirmed that all sites of interest were on the other side of the barrier, they walked a short distance to the location used for the external shots of ‘Coal Hill Academy’ in ‘Class’.

Walking back into the City Centre, having briefly stopped to take photos of University buildings through fences, they made their way to ‘Steak of the Art’, where they had previously ate a meal in a Dalek/TARDIS booth. However, this appeared to be one of the only booths that was occupied, so they sat at a table directly opposite it. On being given menus, it became clear that the burgers that they had had on their last visit were only on the lunchtime menu, with a variety of expensive steaks being the only options. They therefore carefully put their menus down and sneaked out without ordering. Fighting through the throngs of Pride celebrants, they then found an overpriced Chinese, before deciding to set off for a nearby Harvester that TripAdvisor recommended. Passing ‘Henriks’, they finally found it, settling in for unlimited drinks and salad, as well as meat main courses and desserts, all for less than the price of one of the earlier steaks.

Feeling very full, they returned to the hotel, for a night in, retiring early ready for more fun the next day.

Only Dufus went down to breakfast (Shirt was still too full), but on time for once, the two strode off to the bus stop into the Bay. When the bus arrived, it went a few stops, before terminating due to events in the Bay, just outside the Bay Travelodge that they had stayed at last time. Walking around the Bay, passing locations from ‘The Lazarus Experiment’ and ‘The Runaway Bride’, they fought their way through preparations for a bicycle race to reach the Experience.

On the way to the queue, they passed a large number of handprints of ‘Doctor Who’ alumni, dutifully taking photos of each one. Joining a queue, they moved into the covered area and were at the back of the next group to go in.

However, the group before was two short, so as there were no other pairs, they were fastracked into the experience, just in time to hear Romana eulogising the Doctor.

Having flown the TARDIS, and encountered Daleks and Weeping Angels (Dufus being told off for taking a photo), they finally exited into the exhibition. Photos taken of multiple consoles (including loads of the 80s console for Lupine), they queued up for green-screen photos, getting images of the TARDIS and in the cyber-tombs of Telos.

Moving upstairs, they moved round the costumes at a slower pace than their last visit when they had to rush to a TARDIS tour. Finally they reached Davros’ sickroom, which they had last seen at the Festival. Walking through this they came to the Series 10 displays which were arranged by episode. These included parts of the Doctor’s university study, the lever used to execute timelords, the ‘vault’ doors, several emojibots, and many costumes. Shirt was most excited by the ‘Knock Knock’ exhibit which allowed you to stick your head through a hole so that it seemed that you had been absorbed into the wooden wall.

Retracing their steps to look at a few exhibits in the main area again, they exited into the shop, which was looking a little bare, and only had t-shirts and hoodies in limited sizes. Both bought a few pieces of merchandise, with both also getting DWE carrier-bags (which were apparently doing a roaring trade on E-bay), before moving into a side-room which had an exhibition of MDW covers, as well as the chairs from their ‘Doctors 4-8’ photoshoot.

Finally exiting the Experience for the last time, they made their way back to the other side of the Bay, and Eddies Diner (from ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ and ‘Hell Bent’) where luckily Booth 11 which features in the former, was free.

Burgers, fries and drinks consumed, they briefly visited ‘Ianto’s Shrine’, then walked back to the Millennium Centre, where the whole of Roald Dahl Plass had been turned into a beach.

“Let’s hope no-one from Torchwood tries to use the invisible lift”, commented Dufus.

Catching a bus into central Cardiff, they walked a short distance to Cardiff Royal Infirmary which featured as Albion Hospital in ‘Aliens of London’ and ‘The Empty Child’, then on to the University buildings used as ‘Winter Quay’ in ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’.

They then returned to the hotel, where after a brief rest, they walked over to a local budget cinema (£4 per ticket) to watch an evening’s showing of ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’.

On their return to the hotel, both ordered a pizza, which they consumed in the dining room, before returning to their room for more television and another early night.

Having settled up and checked out, first point of call was the proposed meet-up point from the Saturday. From here is was clear that although roads had been opened around the University campus, there was still no access to the appropriate parts inside due to clearing up still going on. Therefore, it was straight on to Bromyard, to the strains of ‘Protect and Survive’. On arrival there was a brief delay as they struggled to get the CD player in Dufus’ new car to spit the completed CD out, but soon they were striding across the road. Having paid for them both, Shirt had to dash back over the road to put new batteries in his camera. On their return a young fan and his family had arrived, and the young fan was showing off his knowledge of classic and new WHO. Having taken photos of the few costumes and items in the entry hall – including a Pertwee TARDIS, a Mechanoid and Rose’s ‘New Earth’ top – they went through some ‘TARDIS Doors’ and down a steep flight of steps to the main exhibition rooms. Items on display included the majority of the trademark Rose and Martha costumes, several Eleventh Doctor costume items, several K9s, various classic WHO monsters, and a large number of aliens who apparently were all in the space-bar scene of ‘The End of Time’ (where Jack meets Alonso). However, the star exhibit as far as Shirt was concerned was the Sixth Doctor costume items including his Necros Mourning Cloak.

Returning upstairs, Dufus bought a ‘Robots of Death’ Action Figure, and Shirt a back-issue of FXS. Exiting blinkingly into the light, they made their way to a nearby teashop, for a quick drink, but mainly to use their facilities.

Moving off again, they made their way across country to a motorway service station where they had chicken meals from FCK, and both got ‘Doctor Who: Mini Viewers’ from a nearby vending machine.

Back in Dufus’ car, his sat-nav let them down in finding their next port of call, the Wistow Maze, a maize maze created in a different design each year. This year’s design was ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (Guess whose idea it was to go there?). Thoroughly lost, they asked a local, and just about being able to follow his directions, finally found the maze.

“Is it a concern that we got lost trying to find the maze?”, asked Shirt.

Having paid for entry, and been given a map of the maze and instructions as to how to complete the mystery trail, they entered the maze.

Progress was slow, and they only managed to find a third of the question boards in the hour that they spent there. However, they managed to walk along his deerstalker, magnifying glass and pipe, before finding a sign to the exit. Knowing that all the question boards were repeated in the final area, they followed this, before filling in all the questions and clues that they had missed. They then managed to use the clues to identify which suspect was responsible for the heinous crime.

Exiting the maze, they drove to Coventry Bus Station where Shirt was to catch his coach home. There being nowhere to park, Dufus had to just drop Shirt then drive off. Both wended their ways home, musing on their ‘Big Weekend’, and planning for the next week’s event.

[PL]