Wed, 02 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Slane, Meath, Ireland
posted 18:14 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Northern Ireland ( all photos )

Towards the South ( 1 photo )
This morning was an un-surprisingly slow affair, with some reading, a bit of breakfast organised, and much apathy. We kicked the soccer ball around for a while, tiring ourselves out before loading up Rosie for another day.
There was not too much pointed out to us of interest in the area between Belfast and the border with the Republic, and we were running low on fuel, so we drove on south through Newry, before seeking out much cheaper fuel back in the Republic of Ireland.

author Tim	location Slane, Meath, Ireland
posted 18:14 BST 02/07/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Northern Ireland ( all photos )

Belfast and Castlewellan ( 27 photos )
Eventually we got on the road, heading more-or-less straight south to see what Belfast had to offer. In a nutshell, not a lot.
Cleaner and more lively that the few other big cities we have been into recently, there were certainly places of interest. We managed to park somewhat in the city centre almost by accident, and unloaded to take a wander around. This took in the dominant City Hall, the leaning Albert Memorial Clocktower, un-impressive St Anne's Cathedral (not being religious people, we look at the architecture of them and this was rather bland), and famous Crown Liquor Saloon, where we lunched in the extravagant surroundings, enjoying a birthday pint, great food and very rude service. Can't have everything, I guess.
The first we noticed of the city's scarred past was reading about the Grand Opera House, across the road from our lunch location. In 1991 an IRA bomb caused massive damage to it, millions were spent doing it up again before "another well loaded ruck was parked outside in May 1993". You wouldn't know now, but this was just one sign of the way the Troubles have affected the city.
It does become a lot more obvious when you drive a little out into suburbia, as we did next, to where there is the massive ugly "peace fence", separating the Catholic areas from the Protestant. Towering at least ten metres high, there are security camera monitored gates which only open during daylight hours (which, as an aside, we are still having until at least 10pm here). We got some stares as we tried to look closer, mothers clutching their children and the like, so we decided not to push our luck, taking a few snaps from afar with zoom lenses.
Next stop was whowhatwherewhenwhy, a similar place to Questacon in Canberra for those who have been there. In the "we're too cool to have decent signage" way of many places, however, we couldn't even find the way in! This hurdle easily overcome by walking in the exit, we were almost instantly transfixed by the strange and amazing sights - massive marble balls on water you could spin around, musical stairs with a different note on each step (Liz's favourite), a fire tornado, and lots of interesting hands-on experiments. Worst criticism of the place was that a lot of the stuff was geared a little too much for the younger ones. No problem, as we had a great time in the "adults must be accompanied by a child under eight" section playing shop, firing balls around the place and playing with water toys.
We could have spent a lot more time there, but the place hadn't quite removed our bad taste of the city in general, so we wandered out (when we could work out what floor that was on - the organisation of the place was rediculous).
Having had enough of the city and its very strange, tense feeling, we headed out in a southerly direction. It wasn't long until we hit a massive traffic jam. Not sure for what the problem was as we crawled in the direction of our next caravan park, we soon found out - at least fifty army jeeps, police, etc., all weilding automatic weapons were surrounding a park, directing traffic in a different direction. We have no idea what the problem was, as there were still children playing in the park as best we could see, but when we asked later that night if anyone knew about it, suggestions ranged from pipe-bombs to bomb hoaxes. Like water off a duck's back, nobody seemed phased - it was just a normal occurrence in the city.
Very glad to be out of the city, we headed south looking for somewhere to go. This lead us more or less directly to Castlewellan, where there was a local Forest Park complete with camping facilities. Plenty of other people, a good atmosphere and proximity to the town made it a sure-fire winner for us, as we unpacked, relaxed, and headed straight into town to unwind and celebrate my birthday as best as we could.
The basic plan was sound - wander around the village's eight or so pubs, sample the delights of each, find some food somewhere and then stagger back home. First pub there was only two really old guys in there and the bartender, who turned down the volume of Wimbledon on the TV as we entered, as if to listen to our conversation.
We had decided that we would proceed around the town in a circular manner, not allowed to jump pubs to get to the food, and as luck would have it, the food place next door was closed, so we had to get to another pub instead. This one was in a B&B place, where we watched the next set of tennis and then some cooking show, chatting with two old biddies about such and such. Despite claims on the signs outside to the contrary, this place wasn't serving food.
No matter, as we only had a couple of pubs between us and the food, the first being a tiny, old, horrible little place run by a crazy paranoid old woman named Mary (the one on the left, smartypants) who was nevertheless quite accomodating (she practically had to open up to serve us, as nobody else was in there or appeared to have been for half a century). She said that Ireland was a nice place to travel around (we agree), but everywhere bigger than this eight-pub, one-horse, two-food-outlet town was evil, and you would get stabbed, everything stolen, and generally have a really bad time there. She'd never travel to London since it was to big and dangerous. We pretended to heed her advice, but still intend to see places a little more adventureous than Castlewellan on our travels. Oh, and her Guiness was terrible.
Taking the by now obligatory photo outside the pub, we wandered past one pub that was closed (what's with that!), the next one was the last on one side of the street - half way there! We had a chat with the very friendly owner, who's son had recently returned from Australia, he astounded us by shouting us a round of drinks! I suppose the old adage is true - "the first one's free", and combined with free Jukebox and cheap pool table, our Castlewellan pub crawl had run off the rails. We played for a while, had another round of drinks (had to pay for something there - we felt bad).
By this time the rest of the pubs were closed, but luckily one of the town's "food" outlets was still open. Not at all fussy what we ate, it seemed ok at the time and has caused no ill effects, so it must have been alright.
Somehow managing to navigate back through the Forest Park to the caravan park (we had cleverly parked near both the entrance and the toilet block), we set up the bed then crashed heavily.

author Tim	location Cushendall, Antrim, Northern Ireland
posted 10:54 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Northern Ireland ( all photos )

Happy Birthday to Me! ( 27 photos )
Yes, that time again - one year older. We are spending it doing very little at a caravan park where we are parked about a metre from the ocean. We have been listening all night to the waves breaking right near us. It is of course very relaxing, and we are taking our time getting on the road today.
Liz has been harbouring some presents from far away, thanks to Mum and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and all those who sent birthday wishes - it's good to hear from everyone.

And now I'm off to ring the folks back home, who have been trying to get through to me this morning without much luck thanks to the international phone systems.

author Tim	location Cushendall, Antrim, Northern Ireland
posted 10:54 BST 01/07/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Northern Ireland ( all photos )

Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede ( 47 photos )
Getting on the road on Monday, we spent most of the day driving around the very scenic North-East coast of Northern Ireland, taking in the towns of Portstewart, Portrush and Portballintraie, a quick stop to have a look in the gift shop at the Old Bushmills Distillery, before tackling the two big tourist attractions in this area.
First was the Giant's Causeway, famous world-wide, although I have to admit to not having heard of it. It consists of 38,000 (or so, we didn't count) strange pentagonal and hexagonal stones, all stacked in columns by the sea. We didn't expect much (that's the best way with these attractions), and after a quick look at the Bushmills to Giant's Causeway Narrow Guage Railway, we then parked down the road from the Causeway Visitor's centre (which we ignored) to avoid paying the hefty parking fee, we wandered across the top of the cliffs for a good view from above.
It wasn't until we got nice and close (after a walking down the cliffs admiring the huge "The Organ" built of similar stones nearby) that we truly appreciated just how strange this place is. There's a pretty complicated geological explanation, of course, but we just thought it was cool, and happily walked all over the place, glad that nobody has been silly enough to fall off and turn the place into a "view from a distance" tourist attraction like so many others.
Walking back to the top, and hence shunning the expensive mini-bus that so many others took (if you are disabled, then sure, but lazy is not good enough - it was a lovely day!), we decided that rather than take in the "twelve minute audio-visual Causeway experience" we were glad we had seen the real thing the way it is meant to be seen, and headed back to the van.
Onwards not far around the coast to the stunning scenery of the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. We had expected this to be a big, expensive attraction that you do just because everyone else does, but were pleasantly suprised to find a small, National Trust-run area where the bridge took second place by far to the stunning scenery. The clear blue waters far below, nesting birds all up the cliff faces and the ones diving for fish a hundered metres or so below, all while you walked along almost totally un-spoilt coast-line and tiny islands once you had made it across the bridge. The bridge itself was rather non-scary, only 20m or so above the sea below.
Back in the van, we drove around probably the most picturesque drive of the trip so far - the coast road between Ballyvoy and Cushendun. This two-tonne-or-less hilly, windy road ducked and turned all along the coast line, until we had to wait ten minutes or so for some cows to wander along the road! The farming family were all out in force making sure the cows made it along safely.
From Cushendun, we looked in the Glenariff Forest at the caravan park there but were quite un-impressed. We attempted to have a "Tim's Birthday Barbequeue" yesterday by purchasing some meat to this site as it was listed as having a BBQ, but upon arrival we found it almost totally devoid of life, nothing to do, in the middle of a forest and certainly no BBQ.
Back to Cushendun, we spent the night in the caravan park where we still sit. We didn't quite have a BBQ, but Liz did a great job of dinner last night (kind of like a BBQ, but inside), and some bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning.

author Tim	location Ballymoney, Northern Ireland
posted 19:57 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Northern Ireland ( all photos )

Northern Ireland - Derry ( 15 photos )
(Continued from the Ireland 1 section)
Driving across the border was a strange affair. At first, we didn't even notice. No signs, no nothing. But all of a sudden, little things are different - the road markings switch back to UK-style, road distances are back to miles, petrol soars in price, and the roads are far far better. Also, the money is Northern Ireland pounds which are worth the same as UK pounds but have different notes. No Euros here. Confusing!
We drove in to Derry/Londonderry for a look around. This place was the centre of some of the worst "Troubles" which I won't attempt to provide history for here. Suffice to say, there was some concern that we were travelling there, even though nothing has been a problem since 1997. Parking on the outskirts, we wandered towards the centre for a look around.
A few more changes became apparent the more we looked - the big chain stores such as Sainsburys appear again, signs no longer had the gaelic equivalent displayed as prominently, and everywhere you looked, if a sign originally was printed with Londonderry, you could be sure that someone had scribbled out the London part in grafitti.
We tried un-successfully to connect the laptop at an internet cafe on The Diamond, which is the central square of the walled part of town. Derry is one of the only cities around which still has a complete wall, having never been penetrated. If only this had helped those who were slaughtered at the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972, the memorial to which we took in soberly, hidden away in suburbia.
Considering wandering further around town, we instead decided that some lunch was in order to rest our weary bodies - Liz's back is particularly bad. We were directed to one of the only places to eat - a great little pub where we ate a huge three-course meal for a rather reasonable price, before setting off on a wander around town.
It was about here that I remembered that now we were back in the UK, I could use my dial-up access on the phone once again, so we didn't need to look any further for an Internet cafe.
Having had enough of a look at specific sites, we walked down a different way back to the van. Finding a Levi's shop, and noting that I desperately needed some new pants, I tried on a pair of jeans, liked them straight away and grabbed them. Trying not to convert the price back to Aussie dollars (thought I was over that!), we bought a soccer/foot ball on the cheap as well - good to kick around caravan parks for some exercise.
After a quick dash back across the border to stock up on some much cheaper fuel, we drove on to tonight's port of call, Drumaheglis Marina & Caravan Park, not far from the little town of Ballymoney. This is a pleasant place, on a lake, which we have had a walk around. Don't think we will need to cook dinner tonight after our lunch!

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