Having reached the centre of Manchester, via the eighteen locks of the Ashton Canal, and moored in Piccadilly Village, the next day it was time to explore. Grizzly said it would save all our paws a lot of wear and walking if we used the trams.
We bears had never been on a tram before and we didn't know whether we would like it but a very kind driver showed us that if we sat right at the front, we could look out through his cab and get an excellent view. The trams whizzed along very quickly and smoothly, like little trains, but often ran along lines in the road in between the other traffic. We thought they were marvellous.
Polar and Grizzly had bought all day travelcards so we could go anywhere we wanted, although small bears don't need tickets at all. The first place we visited, at Hanley's request, was Manchester City's football ground, which we had seen from the canal on our way in.
Hanley was rather sad that he couldn't have a tour because they were getting ready for a rock concert there that evening, but he was glad he had seen it.
'Stoke City will be playing here again soon!' he said confidently, as we left. 'Maybe Grizzly will take me to an away game here?'
From the stadium, we travelled right through the heart of Manchester. The tram got busy with lots of people travelling for work, to do shopping or for a day out, like us. Polar pointed out the Castlefield Basin, where the Bridgewater Canal came into the city and the huge Manchester Ship Canal.
Our tram went to Salford Quays and Media City, where there are television studios and the Lowry Theatre and art gallery. Polar and Grizzly decided to go in for a cup of tea. They had to have their bags checked - imagine how surprised the security man was to see us all looking up at him!
While our humans had their cup of tea, we had a run around the corridors of the theatre, which were quiet as there wasn't a show on just then. We saw a poster for Michael Rosen's famous book about silly people trying to catch a bear, which was now a stage show.
'I wonder if they've cast the bear yet?' I said to Hanley and Endon. We all practised growling and snarling, just in case the producer was around looking for this most important member of the cast, but nobody saw our audition.
Our next destination was Old Trafford, Manchester United's ground. We walked over a bridge that can be raised to let big boats underneath, and Grizzly pointed out a strange-shaped building that is the Imperial War Museum North.
On the way, we saw where they were building another tram route, which will go past the football stadium and right out to the Trafford Centre.
'There will be over a hundred tram stops when that's been built!' gasped Endon. 'We'll have to come again and visit them all.'
'We can come back when Stoke City play Man U,' Hanley Bear said cheerfully, sure that it would be soon.
When Hanley Bear had finished looking around outside Old Trafford, we jumped back in our bear bag and Polar carried us towards the next tram stop, which was next to the cricket ground also called Old Trafford.
There was a Cricket World Cup game happening, between Afghanistan and England. While we posed with a huge model of the cup, Grizzly made friends with some of the Afghan supporters.
Our next tram took us a long way out of the City Centre to Manchester Airport. Manchester has a tramline and a railway line right in to one of the terminal buildings, which must be very useful for people going on holiday who don't want to take their cars.
Grizzly and Polar hoped there would be a café where we could sit and watch the planes but there isn't. We had to go up to the top of the car park to see them! We bears have never flown anywhere. We don't know if we would like flying but we would probably have to try it, if we wanted to visit our online bear friends in America or Australia.
After our plane-spotting adventure, it was time to get the tram back into the city centre. It was nearly teatime and lots of people were making their way home from work or out for the evening, so there were extra trams running. Sometimes we were really close to the tram in front of us!
We went through to Manchester Victoria railway station, which is an interesting mixture of new structures and Victorian architecture. I found a great big bee statue and learned that the bee is the symbol of the City of Manchester.
Meanwhile, Polar and Grizzly had found we could have dinner in the old station restaurant, which had a big glass dome in the roof and lots of fancy tiles on the walls.
'I bet those were made in Stoke!' said Hanley.
As we were thirsty bears, Grizzly let us have a very small sip of beer with our dinner, then it was time to set off again.
We had a short walk so Grizzly and Polar could show Hanley where the National Football Museum was. He was very sad that it was closed and asked if we could visit the next day.
'Not tomorrow, little mate,' said Grizzly. 'Polar has to go home to work and I'm going to take you all out for a day on the train.'
Our day on the trams wasn't quite over as we still had to make our way back to the stop at New Islington, travelling with all the Metallica fans going to the rock concert. We thought it might be a noisy night at our mooring in Piccadilly Village but it was nice and quiet and we all slept very soundly indeed after such a busy day.
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