Belfast to Sligo via the coast road

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Saturday 6th June
Belfast to Sligo via the coast road
Well it wasn’t a bad nights sleep in the backpackers in Belfast,at least for one of us.Gretchen has succumbed to a cold which she reckoned she got from the London tube.So her nights sleep was disturbed.She also reckons that bunks aren’t a bad way to go with sleeping arrangements if you are married to someone who snores!!All you have to do to get the snorer to turn over is give them a kick in the bum from the bottom bunk!!She says it works a treat....not that I would know anything about that.
We were like the Little Pigs and were up before the Wolf(aka other backpackers!!)and down to the communal showers.We thought it best to go and shower together(separate shower cubicles!!)as the lock on the door into the shower room looked a bit dodgy and we thought the real backpackers who are probably used to all in together might think we would like that arrangement too.
Breakfast was out to help ourselves and we were first in.While we eating a guy in his early thirties joined us.He was from Italy and in halting English told us he was here to prepare to do a year at University and had ended up in the wrong part of Ireland where his papers wouldn’t be recognised.He was confused and so were we so we left him to sort it out and got the car on the road heading for the coast.
The weather was still dry although overcast and the temperature still rather cool with a high of 14c expected today.
We took a quick look at the city as we tried to find a Boots chemist that might be open to get Gretchen medication for her developing cold.Strange how I wasn’t the first to come down with a cold as it is usually me that gets the blame for passing one on.!!
The city is not particulary interesting and so we found the A2 and started on our way with Carrickfergus the first stop for some sightseeing.Belfast sits at the end of a large and very wide inlet.It was quite breezy this morning and there were little whitecaps on the sea.In the distance there was the enevitable power station belching out smoke.With a lack of large swift flowing rivers this country has a lot of coal fired stations.
At Carrickfergus the small port is protected by a very well maintained and impressive looking fort built in Norman times around 1100AD.We could have gone inside but we decided it was too early and too cold in the wind.
The road then continued to follow the coast for the next couple of hours and as we headed further north the weather started to break with the sun coming through the overcast and the wind dying away.We passed through a number of small coastal villages with little activity going on.It seems the Irish are not early risers even though by now it was nearing midday.
The road eventually left the coast and meandered through fertile looking farmland with long haired sheep being the principal animals.
The road then returned to the coast at Ballycastle and we decided it was lunchtime.One of the big advantages of having the car is our ability now to carry all our own food in the Foodtown chiller bag kept cold by the ice packs and so we can make our lunch on the road.Today it was ham,very mature and tasty Irish cheddar and tomato sandwiches and fruit.The town was much busier than the others we had passed through earlier and it took a couple of looks to find a car park with a view of the sea and Raithlin Island which is off shore.
Here also we weren’t that far from the Mull of Kintyre,Scotland and with the clearing weather you could see the shoreline across the North Channel of the Irish Sea.
We hadn’t done much walking during the morning and early part of the afternoon so we were ready for a brisk walk when we arrived at Carrick-A-Rede to do some sightseeing.
This place is well known for a 20metre rope bridge that crosses from the mainland to a small island above a 25 metre drop to the ocean flowing underneath.On a wind day the bridge is closed and we could understand why.However today was calm and the bridge was getting a lot of walkers at GBP1.50 a head.It was interesting enough just watching people sway back and forth as they walked across so we were satisfied with doing that.
Next stop,only a short drive further on,was the Giants Causeway.This is probably one of Irelands best known and visited scenic spots and it too was doing good business on this fine ,cool day.
We had read that it was free to walk to the Causeway BUT GBP6 to park your car!!
We are sympathetic to the National Trust and its need to raise money to maintain facilities but 6 quid was a bit over the top.And after all we are on the Benvie Budget Adventure(herein to be known as the BBA).
The Irish are smart little buggers however and had painted yellow lines down both side of the narrow A2 road for some distance either side of the Causeway entrance so it wasn’t going to be a short walk to find a free car park and walk to the site itself.Even the pub at the entrance to the site had signs stating that parking was for guests only!!and we weren’t yet ready for our daily brew to enable us to become guests.
We found a piece of flat land on a corner about 500 metres from the site entrance and parked the car and walked back to take the cliff walk to take in the sights.
We could have paid a quid each to take the shuttle bus the 1km to the rock formation but opted instead to walk along the cliff pathway as we thought the view of the rocks would be best from above.It was an enjoyable walk with a magnificent seascape scenery.
The rock formation was formed by earth movements thousands of years ago and tradition says it forms part of a giants footsteps as he strode across between Ireland and Scotland.
On our return walk we suddenly remembered we had left all our valuables,money,passports etc etc in the car which was sitting on its own now about one and a half kilometres away!!What idiots we were!!How many times have we read about tourists having their car broken into and valuables stolen when the car was left unattended??!!We quickened our pace!!
We could see the car in the distance and we both kept thinking we could see someone skulking around it.It was all imagination of course and the car was all in one piece when we got back to it.
However we won’t be doing that again and perhaps paying the 6 quid to have the car in the carpark might have been some insurance!!
The area we had been travelling through had been sparsely populated but that started to change as we passed through Portrush,Coleraine and onto Londonderry.
We probably would have stopped to take a look at Derry(as it is known) had we been a bit earlier arriving but Sligo was our destination and that was still some distance away.
And anyway the tour director had thought that the road she had plotted was some sort of expressway that would whisk us through the large city of Derry and on our way.
Not so!! And it took some time to get through the interminable roundabouts and city traffic.
The road out of town crossed a river and took a turn up a short but steep street.
Now my driving of a manual gear change car has been relatively limited and I must confess that I do not have a lot of confidence in my hill starts!!
This caused us to rapidly change drivers when the traffic ahead of me as I got about halfway up this short but steep street suddenly came to a stop for traffic lights.We probably had all the other drivers around us wondering what the hell was going on but I didn’t want to have our new car rolling back onto the one behind and so a quick change occurred.And I let Gretchen leave some tyre on the road!!
Thereafter we made a pact to avoid cities like the plague!!!other than to find our overnight accommodation if that was where we staying.
We eventually reached Sligo near 8pm and 3 hours after we had said we would be there.The place we had chosen to stay at was University apartments that turns into a hostel during the holidays and at €40 a night was a great deal as we had shared cooking but own showertoilet/facilities.
There was already a couple of Irish guys there watching the Ireland vs Bulgaria soccer game in the communal lounge and we got chatting to them as we made dinner for ourselves.One of them had been to NZ and reckoned Kiwis and the Irish were very much like each other.In other words we both enjoy a laugh and a beer!!They were very generous and offered us a couple of their cold beers(ours weren’t)as we sat and past the time chatting with them about the world in general.
Another long but interesting day with a lot of sightseeing done and again we didn’t take much rockin’ to get to sleep.

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Comments

[Rin]

Love the photo of Murray. I challenge you to get photos of Murray with his cuzzies in as many countries as you can :-)