My 30th birthday year has been so far so great

I now decided to cash in, on two very thoughtful presents. They add nicely to my list of achievements this year. First stop Manchester, to the Sealife centre and the seaTREK.

The SeaTREK is a sea bed walk in the centre's biggest tanks. In this tank lives Ernie, their famous sea turtle, along with sting rays, a variety of fishes and three sharks. They are reef and bamboo sharks, which are harmless to humans.

This was a present from my work colleagues and it is so unique and yet right up my street I can only say a big thank you to them. I decided to team it with a weekend visit to see my friend Hannah.

In the centre, there were lots of strange and wonderful fish and turtles to see. It's very child friendly and we loved it.

We climbed under bubble screens to be surrounded by clown fish or Nemo as they will forever be known and we looked through the various periscopes. We didn't venture into the soft play area. We decided that was a step too far.

I then met the divers and was taken through for the SeaTREK while my friend Hannah waited. Once behind the scenes they ran through the special helmet.

There was no special dive equipment needed, just a fancy helmet which weighs 32kilos on land and six under water.

It's this that allows you to breathe normally and take in the sights.

After that I got a safety brief, learned some basic hand signals and I was good to go.

I hanged onto the side of the tank and slowly climbed down the ladder.

The helmet is placed on as you continue the descent. You have to make sure you equalise and pop your ears.

Once in the tank, I was surrounded by wee yellow fish straight away who were investigating who we were.

There was six of us in total at the bubble stream where you'd find the stingrays playing.

It was incredible and then as you walked around you come to see Ernie, the giant sea turtle and yet so graceful.

It was such a bizarre experience. The helmet is made in such a way you get three views, side is magnified though so it can be very disorientating.

I had scuba-dived, years ago, which was obviously trickier but it gave you more freedom.

But the SeaTREK allows non divers to get used to bring under water and is a great beginner experience. I still loved it. If anyone had an interest in diving or just interested in the sea and it's magnificent creatures, then this is amazing.

Myself and Hannah then went into the Trafford centre and dinner before getting to our hotel for the evening. We figured we might as well sample Manchester's nightlife while we were there.

It was a great night and we even befriended an Irish rugby team, who had plenty of craic.

A day out at Alton towers was next on the agenda and I had never been.

First stop was Oblivion which is the vertical drop roller coaster. I thought it was a nice introduction for me to throw myself right in at the deep end. I screamed like a banshee but it was great.

We followed oblivion by what became my favourite ride, The Smiler, it's the parks newest addition. It's adrenaline filled loop de loop overload. Amazing - so much so we came back to do it again at the end of our day.

We managed to pack in a lot of rides in the morning. That's the good thing about going week days and out with school holidays. There were still queues but hardly any so we were around all the biggies in no time.

Rita - a ridiculously fast ride gave us a photo op we couldn't pass by! Of course, we purchased a novelty keyring and magnet to commemorate the day.

We had a lovely lunch surrounded by ducks - we were close to the park's pond at this point. The place is huge, it has gorgeous gardens too although we were too interested in completing all the roller coasters.

As it was a lovely day we even went on the rapids and log flume. Absolutely drenched! Hair went straight to curly but what a laugh. Speaking of laughs we ended up going on the runaway train, which is a step up from Cbeebies land, we both attempted to see who could do the highest pitched 'weeeeeeee' as we rounded bends. We are big kids but it was a laugh a minute day. Thank you to Hannah for a fantastic birthday present. The good thing was she got to tag along too.

I definitely won't leave it so long to go to a theme park again. I think the last time was in high school. I had such a wonderful day.

What an incredible weekend of new experiences. SeaTREK number 26, Alton towers - number 27.