The last couple of updates have been done from my tablet and have
necessarily been brief.
As I said previously, wi-fi has not turned out to be a simple as I
anticipated, so we are back to wifi at camping parks and Maccas or
wherever.
Camping parks are necessary evils to empty the toilet, use the washing
machine, get some wi-fi and power to recharge all necessaries that challenge us
if we do it from the battery charger - can’t charge 6 or 7 things at
once!!! However, the camping parks here
are very expensive (tonight we are paying
€30 for the night, plus €1 each for a shower - and don’t know how good
that is yet - and it has cost me €10 to do one load of washing with a dryer
that left everything VERY damp) so will be limiting our visits to them to the
essential.
Free camping is another challenge as it is frowned upon here and in
England, and one has to be very choosy about where we decide to park.
I have no record of what I wrote in my first post - everyone seemed to
get it, but it does not appear on the blog itself - who can explain it? Who can
tell you why? Who cares! Problem is I can’t remember what I have told
you and what I haven’t.
In a nutshell we had a good flight and were treated
VERY well by Richard and Margaret of the Van Storage facility at Cherry Orchard
Farm. We had the van tended to
mechanically - had to get a new gasket on the exhaust manifold - to pass the
MOT (roadworthy), and got it registered and off we went to catch the ferry to
Ireland. The new manifold gasket has
improved our vehicle performance on what we had last trip and we are very
pleased to have had it done. On the
ferry to Dublin, overnighted at Virginia (still in the Republic) overlooking a
VERY cold looking lough or lake (they ALL look very cold), had two nights
overlooking another lough at Anahilt in Northern Ireland near Belfast, which we
got to in a roundabout way through Enniskillen.
That brings you up to date in Belfast.
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| Kenny at Enniskillen |
We wandered around central Belfast which didn’t really
impress us any more than it did when we first visited it 20 years ago. We did the Red Bus tour, which was fairly
unexciting but gave us a broader overview than we would otherwise have
had. It was interesting to hear from the
guide of the sectarian divisions within the city, but fortunately for us no
bombs went off whilst we were there - according to the guide they average 3 or
4 weekly.
From Belfast we travelled north to Ballycastle (as
opposed to Ballyahinch, Ballymena, Balleybofey and many another Bally... - I
must ask some Irish person what the Bally means - probably “little town of”) en
route to the Giants’ Causeway. It was a
VERY (cold) windy day and we paid for the bus to take us down the hill to see
the causeway. We stayed 10 minutes,
decided we had seen enough (it was VERY cold) and caught the same bus back on
its return trip up the hill. Glad we saw
it, but it was nowhere near as huge as I expected it to be.
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| Wendy at the Giant's Causeway |
We stayed overnight there in the Smugglers Inn carpark
after having a wonderful meal and a few drinks in the pub. It was the best Restaurant meal we have had
in ages and we felt it was the best part of the day.
Off next day just down the road to Old Bushmills
Whiskey Distillery. We did the tour, had
a tasting (not bad) and carried on through Londonderry to Donegal. We did a Griggs tour of Londonderry, saw
enough to say we have been there, nothing caught our fancy so we didn’t linger.
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| Kenny tasting a drop of whiskey at Bushmills Distillery |
Donegal is back in the Republic of Ireland. The difference that we have noticed between
northern and southern Ireland thus far, is that the north seems more
affluent. Driving up there on the
eastern side of the Republic, all was green and the houses seemed newish,
biggish and expensive. A we crossed into
Ulster, the houses got bigger and the farms seemed to be bigger too. Crossing towards the west coast from Ulster,
the landscape was not as rich in any way.
Barren hills and seeming infertile soils resulting in brown unkempt
fields rather than the emerald green ones we had just become used to. They seem to improve as we travel south, but
we are still on the west coast and we are not back to that beautiful green
landscape yet. The houses are much more
like the cottages we expected, although in many places there are old stone
cottages which have been abandoned in favour of more modern houses.
We were fairly underwhelmed by Donegal as well, so we
carried on to Sligo. Unfortunately the
two camping parks available there, were NOT available as they do not open until
the end of April - understandable in this weather. We free camped in the car park of the local
kayaking club and got a great night’s sleep despite the (more) heavy rain.
I apologise if we are sounding world weary and blasé
about this tour so far, but the weather is really miserable, although the
locals assure us that this is quite good as far as they are concerned. We are looking forward to getting to Spain
and some warmer weather.
Tonight we are in Galway, parked up cosily in a camping
park overlooking Galway Bay - how about that.
It hasn’t rained since we arrived and I have (finally) managed to get
the washing dry. We drove through town
today and thought it was quite charming, but not charming enough to brave what
was then miserable weather - we are terrible tourists!!
Along our way we have met some lovely people
already. As we waited for the ferry
across to Ireland, we got chatting to Laura and Matt who were travelling across
with their two children (whose names I forgot to ask) to holiday in
Ballybunyon(?). We had just discovered
that our old GPS does not have maps of the Republic of Ireland, and were
bewailing the fact that we would have to revert to actual maps for this part of
the trip. They sympathised and after we
had all gone through into the waiting to board area, they came over and GAVE us
their old GPS. Their new car has one
built in and they have had this mobile one floating about which was surplus to
requirement and they thought we could use it.
How wonderful was that?!! You can
all imagine how happy that made me - navigator horrendous - and Kenny was more
than pleased also. We feel very grateful
and hope that as they read this they will accept our gratitude again.
Once on the ferry, we got chatting - as one does - to
Peder and Sheila Lund from Boulder, Colorado.
Swapped travel stories and left them looking forward to retirement.
In Belfast we foisted ourselves on Rosemary in
MacDonalds as we forced her to share her table with us. What a lovely lady. We mined her for information on Belfast and
on the political landscape there and she gave us lots of information in a
wonderfully amusing way. She never
stopped laughing and smiling the whole time we shared that table!!
The highlight of our time in Belfast was the City Hall
- what a beautiful building. We got in
there about 3.30pm to fill in some time before we had to catch our bus. The last tour of the day had already
finished, but one of the guides offered to take us on our own private little
tour. The photos we have taken do not do
justice to the beautiful Edwardian decor and decorative architecture of the
building and I will try and find some photos online to post with this
blog. He also explained the political
situation in their council chambers - just as volatile as the politics in the
streets - loyalists versus Ireland for the Irish.
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| Wendy Outside City Hall Belfast |
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| Dome and chandelier of Belfast City Hall |
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| Wendy at the Memorial to working women in Belfast |
Tomorrow we are off to Limerick, a little further
south, via a little more of the coastal route.
Getting a little bit sick f the coastal route - it is all windy and cold
and wet. But hopefully tomorrow will be
a nicer day and maybe in my next post I can give you a limerick from its native
land J.
Finishing off now to download some photos and hopefully
posting them on the blog.
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