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Published: September 7th 2011
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We flew Easyjet from Paris to Belfast, which went relatively to plan as we had queued up early at CdG airport for our ticketing. Following the wedding celebrations, we had planned to send a package home containing all our formal clothes, since we had no further need for them on the trip, and thought it would be easier to send from Belfast than Paris due a) fewer language problems and b) we were leaving Paris on the Sunday. Big mistake! Easyjet charged us AUD150 for the excess baggage, which was almost as much as it then cost us to then send the package all the way back to Sydney. Ironically, there was an electronic trace provided on the package, and it travelled from Belfast to Dublin to London to Paris (back again!) to Guangzhou (sic) to Sydney. Hard to believe all the double handling, but it did finally get back home intact.
We had booked our Belfast accommodation about 4 months in advance and got a great deal at a hotel called the Fitzwilliam, a classy hotel right near the city centre. How do we know we got a great deal? We were unbooked for our final night in NI
and came back to the same hotel only to be charged 60% extra for an ‘on the spot’ booking! The City Hall area of Belfast is very appealing and since we were without wheels, we took one of these ‘hop on, hop off’ buses for the day, which was good value. The highlight for us was the time spent on Shankill and Falls Roads where we were able to see the various remnants of the hostilities of previous years, and especially the fence separating the religious factions and the many murals on various walls.
The following day, we rented a car and took off for Londonderry via the scenic Causeway Coastal Route, advertised as “one of the world’s great road journeys”. And so it was, although we did get our first taste of rain for the trip during our drive. We stopped off en route at Carrickfergus Castle, a 12th century Norman stronghold that held out a range of invaders over the centuries due its high walls and ‘double shell’, protecting the inner section of the castle. From there, we passed through the Glens of Antrim, where we passed by the foot of nine different Glens. “Knock, knock, who’s
there?” “Glen”. “Glen who?”. Well, ‘Glen who’ were each of Glenarm, Glencoy, Glenariff, Glenballyemon, Glenaan, Glencorp, Glendun, Glenshesk and Glentaisie. However, the main highlight of the drive was always going to be the famous Giant’s Causeway, which is a large display of some 40,000 formations of six-sided basalt columns, which are packed closely together and appear to form a ‘stepping-stone’ pathway stretching out into the sea. They have various heights, ranging from just above the waterline to as high as 12 metres tall. The weather was kind and the rain broke and the day cleared considerably, which was convenient as there is about a 20 minute walk from the road to the Causeway site. Only downside – people crawling over it like ants, but where doesn’t that happen at popular sites during the peak season.
Londonderry was a pleasant overnight sojourn, where we stayed a little out of the city in a great B&B called Groartys. The main part of the city is housed within city walls, which can be circumnavigated fully to give a good perspective of the various sights. These are in turn close to the banks of the attractive River Foyle, traversed by the recently completed
Peace Bridge. While ‘peace’ has nominally come to this region, there were times and places where you could still sense some of the old tensions. Certainly our view from our short stay in Northern Ireland is that the locals don’t have as much cheer as their southern cousins, but maybe their history doesn’t give them great reason for light-heartedness.
So from here it’s over to Inverness, for a drive around the Highland and Inner Hebrides regions of bonnie Scotland.
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