May 12, 2013 - Belfast

The reason I stayed in this area was to have a look at the city of Belfast. It was an easy drive to get there this morning but I started going around in circles when I reached the city centre. They’re mostly one way streets & my Sat Nav insisted on trying to take me down a street which was restricted to buses & taxis. I gave up & drove to the Titanic Quarter which is on the other side of the river. The government has spent a huge amount of money in building up this Titanic Quarter as a tourist centre in order to reclaim the area which had...

May 11, 2013 - Portstewart to Newcastle, Co Down

Moving day again. I got away about 9:00am I headed directly south about 65 miles to Armagh which has been a very important place in the history of Ireland pretty much forever. This was the home to the ancient Kings of Ulster & according to tradition, when Christianity spread to Ireland during the mid 400s, Saint Patrick established his principal church there & was said to have decreed that only those educated in Armagh could spread the gospel. Armagh is the site of two cathedrals, both on hills and both named after Saint Patrick. The Church...

May 10, 2013 - Causeway Coastal Route

Still frequent showers today & back to about 10°C so a better day for driving in my dry, warm car than out in the weather. I went south to a town called Ballymena where there was a museum called The Braid which portrayed “the story of County Antrim from earliest times to the present day”. It was OK but not spectacular. I found it very localized & there really wasn’t much to it. They had a big display about what was happening in Ireland in the period from 1912 to 1914 but it was all very complicated so I gave up. It’s quite topical though...

May 9, 2013 - Portstewart

It was raining this morning so I took some time off to do some laundry, catch up on some reading about Belfast which is my next destination & write some e-mails. The weather cleared up for a while this afternoon so I walked along the Portstewart Promenade. Portstewart is a lovely old-fashioned seaside town but I've only driven through it when there were hoards of people & cars during the long weekend. The sun even came out during my walk so I could buy an ice cream from one of the many speciality shops. The only thing I found out was that...

May 8, 2013 - Doagh Famine Village, Inishowen

The weather forecast for today was pretty awful which restricted my options. I decided on a return to County Donegal & in particular an attraction called Doagh Famine Village on the Inishowen peninsular which is the part of Donegal on the other side of Lough Foyle. There is a ferry that goes across the top of the lough but it only goes once an hour so I opted to drive around the bottom, nearly to Derry & across the Foyle Bridge. The Doagh Famine Village was absolutely brilliant. It’s a family-run, private business which has well-deserved...

May 7, 2013 - Giant's Causeway

The Giant’s Causeway, which is undoubtedly the largest tourist attraction in the area, is only about 10 miles to the east of Portstewart but I waited until the crowds had gone after the long weekend & today had the best forecast for this week. It turned out to be a lovely sunny day & about 18°C which is a lot warmer than it has been. I stopped on the way at Dunluce Castle which is very dramatically perched on the edge of cliff, or at least most of it is. In 1639, on a very stormy night the MacDonnell family were entertaining in their lavish...

May 6, 2013 - Londonderry

Michael Palin described the train journey between Londonderry & Coleraine as “one of the most beautiful rail journeys in the world”. Coleraine is just 5 miles from Portstewart, Londonderry was high on my to-see list, the weather forecast was fine & I’ve got a lot of respect for Michael Palin so it seemed like a good opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. The train had come from Belfast & was quite full when it got to Coleraine where there were plenty of people waiting – everyone got a seat but I didn’t have a very good window...

May 5, 2013 - County Donegal

Even though I’m still in Ireland, I crossed the border into Northern Ireland yesterday so now I’ve moved from Euros & kilometres to Pounds & miles. Since I’m officially in the UK, I also changed the Sim card on my phone so the number is back to +44 757 201 7989. I had to do some laundry this morning so it was nearly lunch-time before I was ready to venture forth. I picked up some literature at the Tourist Office in Donegal yesterday & as usual, there’s so much to see I don’t know where to start. There are people everywhere because this is a...

May 4, 2013 - Carrick-on-Shannon to Portstewart

I spent most of the day driving & the only real stop I made was in Donegal about lunch-time. I had time to look at Donegal Castle which was worth it, a Tower House similar to Ross Castle in Killarney. I arrived at Portstewart which is very busy because this is a Bank Holiday weekend. After a few false starts I finally met up with Kieran & was shown into the apartment. It’s lovely & has a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean, This is the apartment where I got a free upgrade because the family is Australian & for some reason offered me this...

Mar 14, 2013 - Top o the morning to Ya loves!

So I just found out that if you Catholic, both northern ireland and ireland are both just Ireland. It so happens that I am very catholic so I have therefore decided that I have the right to add ireland and northern ireland to my list of countries. At least till I'm able to come back around these parts and hit up Dublin. Its been a very very informative day. Learned a lot about the history of Ireland and how the two countries got split up and the factions involeved. Coming to ireland was more of a let's try to see as much as possible thing...

Sep 12, 2012 - Into the North

Left Ireland for a visit into Northern Ireland. Got off to a rocky start when a local old fellow became convinced that Joe had bumped his car as he parallel parked. No new bumps or marks on the car but he came over and chewed Joe out and called him a "cock"... WTF??? Similar scenery with many less rock walls, less castle ruins and certainly more trees. Dropped by the Whitepark House to check in but were a bit early. So we headed up to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge to test our fear of heights and high winds. Lovely hike and great views....

Jul 26, 2012 - Day 3 - The Moyle Way: Orra Beg to Ballycastle

Wow what a day. It wasn't at all what we had expected and was a very difficult hike in some places. Our walk took us from the entrance of a forest to a small coastal town called Ballycastle. For 20.9km and almost 5.5 hours of walking, we crossed through forest (I mean walking on wet moss, jumping across streams, climbing about 300 meters in 1 km, taking a step on the path and sinking right down into the water, crossing over and under trees that had fallen down, sliding on my butt at 1 point! haha). It was tough going and wasn't a "normal"...