A trip to Mecca

Day 26

It is true what they say about getting used to smells – I awoke in the morning having acclimatized myself to the stench of man-funk. That being said, I still awoke early and had to have a shower straight away.

Post-shower, I headed downstairs and caught up with Charlie, the girl that had checked me in the day before (I only just remembered her name now).

I asked her where a good place to grab some breakfast and a morning coffee was, and as I had also taken stock of my socks and jocks levels (or lack thereof) I sought information on where I could get some clean underderfs. Charlie told me where I could find the nearest Primark, a store infamous in the UK for low-cost clothing. Primark is the Australian equivalent of Best-Buy, only with a much bigger floor plan.

I trundled down to Primark and picked up a few clean pairs of undies and socks, and then did something that I had been trying to avoid – I slummed it and had McDonalds for breakfast. While I was there I changed socks (as I had had no clean pairs that morning).

After grabbing some alleged food, I set out on foot for my major destination of the day. I walked past Nottingham castle which looked like a nice sturdy building from the outside, and following the directions I had been given I found the canal at the southern end of Nottingham. It was a beautiful day, and a lovely walk along the canal.

There were lots of river boats moored along the banks, and a number of people out for walks or just sitting along the edge of the canal.

After about a half hour of walking along the canal, I found the street that I needed to turn onto. A short walk and I saw a building rising above the others which let me know that I had arrived at Warhammer World.

Warhammer World is the HQ of Games Workshop, where all of the game-design boffins, model sculptors, model foundry and model gallery is located. I had a massive smile on my face when I saw a full-size Space Marine standing on top of a pedestal out the front of the building.

Warhammer World isn’t a theme-park (it’s certainly not Wally World) – it is more of a Mecca for anybody that plays with war-dollies or has worked for Games Workshop. Something that all of those in the aforementioned category say “One day, I will go there.”

I followed the signs to the carpark and where the entrance was located.

I had an excited giggle when I saw a life-size Rhino APC parked in the carpark.

I gave a hoot of joy when I saw the entrance to Bugman’s Bar.

And I had a little bit of lower movement when I saw the 8 foot by 6 foot display of Tyranids assaulting a Spacewolves fortification in the window.

And all of this before even entering the building.

Once I passed through the doors, I was greeted by a statue of Lurtz from the Lord of the Rings, and a Chaos Space Marine standing beside him.

As the late great Big Kev used to say: I was excited.

I wandered upstairs to find another life-size Space Marine statue, walked past the model gallery (which I knew I would spend lots of time in later on) and into a massive gaming hall. There would have been at least 60 tables all set up for people to bring their armies along and play a game on.

They had a store as well at the side of the gaming area, which as stores go was pretty much stock standard, although given that the forge for model casting was located on site, you could order models that weren’t available in-store, as well as the resin kits from Forgeworld. Oooooooh. A hobbyists wet dream.

Particularly given that the exchange rate was so good that buying models in the UK was about half the price of what we pay in Australian stores.

I was assisted by a very helpful young fella called Nick, who took my order and told me that the extra bibs and bobs that I was picking up for some friends would be available in a couple of hours time.

I decided to take this opportunity to peruse the gallery of models. These models had been painted up by Games Workshop’s expert painting team, ‘Eavy Metal. The pictures of the models that you see in the army books make them look exquisite, but when you saw them in the flesh they were truly amazing. I spent 2 hours walking around the gallery, and I think I took more photos in this one spot than I almost did on the whole rest of the trip.

I decided to wander over to Bugman’s Bar after this to grab a couple of pints and post a few photos for my jealous friends back home.

Bugman’s Bar had a whole heap of paraphernalia on the walls – trophies from battles, an Orc’s head on the wall, as well as an extremely large map of the Old World.

Post pints, I headed back to the store where my order was making its way back to the store for me. I wandered around for a couple of minutes, grabbed my order when it arrived, and decided to make my way back into town.

I took another lovely stroll along the canal, where many people were out and about enjoying the sunshine, and picked up my train ticket for the next day to Manchester.

I stopped off at Tescos on my way back to the hostel, where I picked up a massive bag of (pea)nuts and a couple of bottles of cider. It was about 6pm when I got back to the hostel, and I spent the evening catching up on my blog, drinking the ciders and having a lovely dinner of (pea)nuts.

I had a relatively early night, very happy that I had finally made it to wargamer’s Mecca, another thing to cross off the bucket list.