This morning we headed over the border to a new country and a new currency, Northern Ireland!
The transition was practically unnoticeable with no signs to indicate the border, certainly no armoured checkpoints as would have been present just 20 odd years ago. It was only Google changing the speed display from km/h to mph that alerted us.
Our first stop was the Marble Arch Caves. The tour went down 154 steps, 1km under the ground and then back up the same steps. When the water levels are right there is also a boat component, but they were a bit too low today so it was walking only. The caves are known to be 11km in length but may be longer.
The limestone caves are an active river system with stalagtites, some stalagmites, cascades, flowstones and lots of other rock.
Although the caves had low water today, they do regularly flood; last July it was flooded to the roof of the cave, it flooded 3 times in March to about 1/2-3/4 height.
After this tour we drove a short distance to the Cuilcagh Boardwalk Trail. Here we walked out a couple of km and turned as the weather did.
We then drove into Enniskillen and divided and conquered. Kevin visited the War memorial and the memorial to the Remembrance Day bombing.
I went to a knitting shop to obtain some scissors and a wool needle-needed items for the knitting project I started last week with my Aran wool.
Back at the car we drove towards our accommodation, stopping along the way to view the Drumskinny Stone Circle and Alignment.
We stopped at a supermarket in Strabane to grab what we needed for dinner for three nights and drove (literally) around the corner to our accommodation. We took a walk to an incredibly cute little pub for our holiday beer, Guinness obviously.
Got some sightseeing recommendations from the locals, so it is Derry tomorrow and a few things near Giant’s Causeway the day after.
This morning we woke to rain and a hope it wouldn’t be around all day. We made the short drive to Derry and parked up just outside the city walls.
The first thing we noticed driving in were the many murals on the ends of terrace houses. I’ve included some here.
Our first activity was the Museum of Free Derry which we found really interesting. It mostly covered the years 1968-1972, with a focus on events leading up to and after Bloody Sunday.
We followed up with the Peacemakers Museum which covered the years 1972-2007 and primarily followed three men who were instrumental in both the early human rights protests through to achieving the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
One received the Nobel, the Martin Luther King Jr and Ghandi Peace Prizes.
We walked back along the road to view the IRA, H-Block, Hunger Strike and Bloody Sunday memorials.
We made it to our car just as the rain came in sideways again-we ate lunch in the car, nice and dry.
The rain stopped again so we walked to the Peace Flame near the river, the flame was actually out. Hopefully not an omen!
We then found the Derry Girls mural -if you haven’t watched this show, we highly recommend it
– then Craft Village, a walk along the city walls
and finally Derry’s smallest pub for a well earned drink.
Heading back to Strabane now.
An early start today to make our time at Carrick-a-Rede, a rope bridge from the mainland to a small rocky island. The bridge was used by fishermen to access their boats until 2003.
We made it in plenty of time, but unfortunately, so did the wind and the bridge was closed for safety reasons. We still did the walk out and back to take a look and see the coastline. It was very blustery!
We made it out to the bridge, took in the view and then walked back.
We had a hot drink to warm up then drove to Bushmills.
We joined a tour of the Old Bushmills Distillery, Ireland’s oldest Distillery having been licensed since 1608 and producing whiskey on this site since the 1200s.
Neither of us are whiskey (or spirits) drinkers but thought we’d give it a red hot go, after all if you’re going to try it, try the best! So we learned all about the ingredients, the process and the difference between single malt and blended whiskies. Then it was time for the included tasting.
We were given a dram of a 10 year old, 16 year old and 21 year old single malt whiskey to try. We learned about releasing the flavour and that you don’t add water or ice to Irish whiskey.
Neither of us are converted. We enjoyed the water more. Oh well. We can always try again in Scotland!
We stopped in the town of Bushmills and had the most delicious cheese toastie for lunch, then drove to the Giant’s causeway. We took a strategic approach to the walking there and started the red path before switching to the blue path, thereby avoiding having to go up 168 steps. Down wasn’t so bad.
It was incredibly windy up on top of the cliff, but relatively pleasant down lower.
We clambered over some rocks making our way to the actual Giant’s Causeway.
After watching some waves crash on the rocks and enjoying the view for a bit
we made our way back up the hill.
We enjoyed our second last drive through the countryside before we leave for Scotland on Sunday.
We left Strabane this morning for our final scenic drive on the Island. We arrived in Belfast and found parking with no problems and headed to meet our booked tour.
We joined the “History of Terror” walking tour. It was excellent. Almost three hours walking around Belfast stopping at places of significance in the history of The Troubles.
Each stop also included the human stories around each political event and managed to walk a neutral line through it all. We also visited some tourist spots.
The tour guide Mylie was probably the best short-tour tour guide we’ve had. With a PhD in Northern Ireland Politics she knows her stuff but managed to deliver incredibly serious information in a gentle and accessible way, managing to summarise the history of Irish politics from the 1200s through to the 1970s in 20 minutes at the start of the tour to provide a good background. She also summarised the peace agreement process and the way forward at the end.
We’d highly recommend it if you visit Belfast.
After the tour we walked to a pub and had some lunch and a Guiness (must keep our iron and Vit.B levels up), did a spot of shopping then headed for our hotel.
We started our last day in Northern Ireland with a parkrun – a new country and crossed off the letter Q in the parkrun alphabet as the parkrun was “Queens” parkrun held at the Queen’s University sports grounds.
We then headed back to our hotel, showered and walked into the city. Queen’s University Belfast is only a block from our hotel.
We passed a number of murals along the way.
We made it to the centre of town.
We eventually arrived at where we were meeting some of Kevin’s friends from his time in the army. They hadn’t met in 20 years. We had a delicious lunch, then moved on to the Harp Bar.
An iconic bar in Belfast that gets pretty crowded.
A couple of hours and a few drinks later we finished up and headed back to our accommodation. Time to get prepped for the next part of this leg of our year.
Heading to Scotland this morning on the Stena Line ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan.
From there we’ll have a four hour drive up to the Fort William area where we’ll be staying for the next 5 nights.
As we leave the island of Ireland we have time to reflect.
Do we wish we had more time here?
We’re going to say yes to probably every country we go to! But yes, of course we’d love more time. We’d like to be able to explore the north west corner and between Dublin and Belfast. Yes, we could do that now, but that would cost us time in Scotland, Wales etc. We can’t do and see everything!
If we had an extra week and had to spend it in places we’ve already been, where would we want more time?
Achill Island and the surrounding area, and Northern Ireland. There would also always be more to see and do around the South West.
Is there something we wish we had done but didnt?
Visit a pub with musicians playing traditional music with instruments. We certainly put some time and effort into finding one, but did not.
How did we find the driving?
Comfortable. It’s easy when there are not crazy people in the road! There were many scary times (as the passenger, sitting on the middle of road side of cab, when the gap between cars passing was “lucky our mirrors are at different heights”! Google maps was almost 100% accurate with time estimates and speed limit changes.
So we arrived in Scotland got to our accommodation near Fort William, with a view of Ben Nevis from our door.
An Unplanned Year 
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