Okay everyone....we know it's been forever since we actually got back...but we've been so busy this had to wait a little bit. Better late than never at all!
Northern Ireland, Spring 2008
Saturday May 10
[Dave writes…]
I thought I’d make some notes from our first day in Belfast while I give my arteries time to absorb the full impact of our first “Ulster Fry” breakfast and Steph makes ready to head out.
The flights in went about as well as can be expected. Dave L. dropped us off at the airport with enough time to spare that we were able to catch an earlier flight to Chicago, with a free upgrade to the front row seats from which we had a pleasant conversation with our flight attendant Grace. The overseas flight to Heathrow was much less comfortable. Narrow seats and an oft-crying baby meant we didn’t get much sleep, but we survived what was ultimately the worst part of the whole trip. Heathrow is a labyrinth; at least it’s well populated with staffers who can tell you when you’re in the wrong queue. We had time for a nice bit of pizza before flying off to Belfast. It was a pleasant surprise to see that our luggage made the flight as well. A quick stop at the information desk to purchase a bus pass, and we were off in a taxi to our first bed and breakfast. The taxi driver was happy to point out where the Titanic was built and to tell us where to go see the Belfast political murals, though to be honest I didn’t really understand much of what he said.
The B&B was a little disappointing. It was cheap enough for being in the city, and conveniently located on a bus line and nearby to a number of shops, which was nice. However the room, which might have once been a front room in the Victorian style house, was somewhat rundown and the bed wasn’t the most comfortable. We took a little time to shower and change and collect our thoughts. Then off to the bus into City Centre, some consulting of the map, and a short hike to dinner at a pub I had heard about. Which was completely booked. Fortunately, the apologetic waitress gave us directions to another pub. Which was also completely booked. Saturday night in downtown Belfast seems to be pretty busy, with a convergence of urban punk, high fashion chic, and traditional downtown pub dwellers. Feeling defeated, we went across the street to a lackluster diner with bad service. After suffering through overcooked peas, flat soda, and the Irish fascination with potatoes, we set out to locate some concert venues.
We found The John Hewitt, a little pub with a session in the corner and a boisterous barman who assured us we wouldn’t need reservations for the concert there the next night. It would have been grand to have a pint and listen to the jig being played on the fiddle and bodhrán, but we had another concert to find. In retrospect, that was the only traditional session we came across for the rest of the trip, and I regret that we didn’t stay. Nonetheless, a little wandering, a little map checking, and a little consulting with the natives, and we found the Black Box. The band was still setting up so we went ’round the corner to another bar, the Duke of York, and had drinks. The concert was… disappointing. The bands – a local trio that opened and a Nashville experimental project called the Silver Jews – just seemed off. We left early, went back to the first pub to make reservations for Sunday night dinner, hiked back to City Centre, and caught the last bus home. Sleep came easy.
Now, with breakfast settled, and a stroll around the neighborhood to get some better coffee and take in the fresh air, we’re awaiting Martin, a taxi driver with high recommendations from our host, who will drive us around to see historic Belfast and the political murals.
Our first day in Belfast was definitely a learning experience. On the plus side though, the Argonne anti-jet-lag diet worked splendidly and we had no trouble adjusting to the new time zone. Steph even agrees it was worth doing without coffee in the mornings last week. And possibly the most amusing observation of the day was seeing little kids driving cars. At least, that’s what it seems like when you see a kid looking at you from what you expect to be the driver’s seat of a passing car.
Sunday May 11
[Dave writes…]
Martin, who as it turned out looks a bit like a leprechaun, provided a highly entertaining, colorful, and passionate tour of the city. He drove us around to see many of the political murals painted on the sides of buildings throughout Belfast, some by the Catholic Republicans who oppose British rule and want Northern Ireland to unify with the Republic of Ireland, and some by the Protestant Loyalists who support the British crown. We got to see a number of important buildings and sites, as well as some sections of the Belfast peace lines – a series of walls and fences erected by the British to curtail fighting between adjacent opposing neighborhoods. Martin had no shortage of opinions to share, and always made sure we were still interested as he gave us the history of the Troubles. His anti-British Government leanings started to wear on by the end of the trip, but we certainly had a much better time and were learned in the Belfast conflict much better for his insight.
He dropped us off by the River Lagan and we wandered a bit, stopped in a wee café for a spot of lunch, and wandered some more. Steph called her Mom for Mother’s Day while I took pictures of St. Anne’s Cathedral. We stopped back at the Duke of York for wine and a Guinness, and then returned to the Black Box for the Paperboys concert. The Paperboys were fantastic. Hailing from Vancouver but performing mostly in Europe these days, they gave an energetic performance with an internationally eclectic blend of rock, Celtic, Mexican, country bluegrass, and European folk. After the show we tried to convince them to come to Madison but that’s going to be a long shot.
We were exhausted after the show so we hung out on a bench by the river for a bit, then hopped across the road to McHugh’s Restaurant for some Asian/Irish fusion food in Belfast’s oldest building. It was delicious, and we finished it off with some traditional Irish desserts. Then it was a short stroll to The John Hewitt to hear the guitar stylings of Lee Rogers, a Belfast area native. Lee was great but the venue wasn’t – we couldn’t see the stage and it was hard to hear over all the talking, so we opted to leave and catch the last bus back to the B&B.
Monday May 12
[Dave writes…]
Monday was our first excursion out of Belfast. After breakfast, we negotiated the busses over to the city airport to collect Leon, our rental car (a Leon is a model of car from SEAT, a Spanish car manufacturer). Steph was eager to try driving on the left, so she took the controls while I navigated us along the A55 to the M1 towards Dungannon and the Tyrone Crystal factory. Steph proved to be awesome at driving on the left, and we made a great team. I helped remind her what side of the road to turn into and how to negotiate the roundabouts, and she helped spot errant road signs. We forgave each other’s minor mistakes and made our way into the Irish countryside.
Everyone talks about how green Ireland is. I wouldn’t say that the trees or grass are more green there than in, say, Wisconsin, but there is certainly more of it. The fields, the mountains, the hedges, the walls that border the narrow winding roads, all covered in green. The exceptions are the yellow hedge shrubs and the white sheep. So many sheep. Sheep in fields. Sheep on hills. Sheep on cliff tops. I think there are more sheep in Ireland than people.
Our first stop as we found our way through the outskirts of Belfast was Giant’s Ring. After a somewhat distressing drive uphill through a narrow twisting wall-lined lane, we found the car park and wandered in. Giant’s Ring is basically a large green grass field encircled by a sloped embankment about 650 feet in diameter and 13 feet high. At the center is a dolmen, an arrangement of large rocks piled into a structure resembling a child’s fort, which was presumably a passage tomb that was once covered with a mound of earth. It was apparently an ancient burial site and/or place of ritual worship dating back some 5000 years. Now it serves primarily as a pickup site for gay men, a fact I had stumbled across online and which was now confirmed by the presence of the half dozen cars in the car park each containing a solitary middle-aged man, and the occasional man walking or jogging across the ring and into the woods on the far side.
Having seen enough, we wound our way back to the main road and moved on. The M1 is probably the only true divided motorway (what we would call a freeway) in Northern Ireland, and it didn’t take long for us to arrive at the Tyrone Crystal factory. Unfortunately we were a little late for the 12pm tour, so we drove a little further into Dungannon for lunch. Now let me tell you something about parking in Ireland. When you parallel park, it doesn’t matter which direction the car is facing – with traffic or against it. If you see a spot on the other side of the road, you just cross the oncoming traffic lane and take the spot. We attempted this. It resulted in an awkward maneuver involving staring down an oncoming bus, and accidentally honking at an old man trying to cross the street in front of us. But it ultimately worked and we found a nice pub with sandwiches and a pint for me and a coffee for Steph.
One U-turn in the town centre later and we were back at the factory for their 2pm tour. It was remarkably interesting. The factory was founded in the 1970’s to provide work for the community; it was a priest who bought some cutting wheels and his students learned to cut glass on old jars. They recruited a pair of Austrian glasswork experts who happened to be travelling in England at the time, and who stayed on to run the new company. To this day Tyrone Crystal still cuts all their crystal by hand. The tour itself was unlike one you’d find in the states. We were led right up next to the machinery, we interacted with the workers as they poured and cut the glass, and we were even just a few meters from one of the two Austrians who started the company – he was operating a press forming blobs of molten glass into paperweights. After the tour we picked out a couple of items from the shop to buy, and drove back to Belfast.
Along the way we stopped off at a nature preserve on the shore of Lough Neagh, Ireland’s largest lake. The lake is said to have been created when the Irish giant Finn McCool hurled a large chunk of land at his rival in Scotland, missing him and creating the Isle of Man in the process.
Back in Belfast, we relaxed at the B&B for a bit, looked through some restaurant guides, took the bus downtown, and went for a ride on the Belfast Wheel. This is a 200 foot Ferris wheel with enclosed glass gondolas that offer a unique view of the city, from the giant shipbuilding cranes on the harbor to the old Victorian buildings downtown to the mountains beyond the city. We went around several times before they let us off (possibly because the wheel operators were busy loading and unloading the troop of Brownie Girl Scouts that queued up behind us). Dinner was around the corner at what was possibly the best restaurant in Northern Ireland, Deane’s. I had something fantastic made from a rabbit. Steph’s was made from a sheep. We finally left in time to catch what I expected (mistakenly, it turned out) to be the last bus. It was already pulling out and I was determined not to miss it, so I imposed myself bodily in front of it. The driver intoned that he should have run us over, but he let us on anyway and we returned to the B&B for the night.
Tuesday May 13
[Dave writes…]
Tuesday morning marked the start of another beautiful day; as it turned out, remarkably and uncharacteristically, every day of our trip had beautiful weather. We packed up, had breakfast (more fried meats, fried breads, fried eggs, and fried tomatoes than one could ask for), and settled up with the B&B. In retrospect, this was our second-least favorite B&B of the trip. The room was spacious but the paint was peeling, the breakfasts were good but not as fresh as at other places, and of our host couple, the man was helpful but not around much, and the woman who was around more often was decidedly not helpful for getting recommendations of things to do or places to eat. Regardless, it served our needs just fine.
We headed north through Belfast and the only real traffic we encountered on the trip, and found the A2 Coastal Road which took us to neighboring Carrickfergus and the best preserved Norman castle on the island. Carrickfergus Castle was originally built in 1177 into the rocks at the water’s edge, overlooking the harbor of Belfast Lough. It was expanded a few times over the years, and remained in military use until 1928. Now it’s open for tourists to explore and it’s decorated with life-sized mannequins representing the people who lived there – royals, soldiers, peasants, etc.
[Steph writes…]
We got there just as the castle was opening in the morning. As we walked up the incline to the ‘front doors’ of the castle, there were two models of guards which I posed for pictures with.
Dave and I wandered around the castle. Its layout made it rather easy to imagine just what it would have been like when the castle was in full functioning order. Very well preserved. We toured every possible open room and area and climbed the spiral tower. I’m sure Dave knows the correct name for it [the Keep], but to me it’s from Rapunzel. The views from the top were amazing. As we were coming down the spiral staircase there was a group of pre-school aged children sitting in an area joining the end of the stair case reenacting castle life. Quite cute.
We wandered a little, got several post cards from the shop and continued with our drive up the coast towards Drumkeerin, our B&B for the next two nights. Along the way we decided that we would stop to get an aux adaptor to listen to the iPod in the car, and have some lunch. We stopped at this plaza in a town called Larne and had an interesting encounter in a catalogue order shop much like Service Merchandise however they wouldn’t be able to get what we wanted until Tuesday. So we walked on where we came across a cell phone shop where we thought we might just find what we were looking for. It turns out that we didn’t but this guy (possibly the owner) was telling us how he drove his Fiat Panda across the U.S. I just looked him up and much to my surprise I found some information on the story he described to us.
http://www.larnetimes.co.uk/news/TRANSAMERICA-IN-A-15YEAROLD-FIAT.1582421.jp and this is the link to the paper who wrote him up! We did get some useful information other than interesting stuff from him. He directed us to a hardware store of sorts up the street and told us we’d find a place to eat lunch there as well.
Not only did we find the iPod adaptor but we also found some good fish and chips and mushy peas for lunch. It was a good stop that ended with some really really good ice cream (rum raisin) but it was time to move on.
The drive was absolutely gorgeous although it was somewhat difficult for me to take my eyes completely off of the road ahead. It was all around us. Curvy coastal line driving on roads so narrow I’m surprised I did us no damage. At one point we stopped on the side of the road which was also adjacent the ocean to have a break. It was so peaceful and so beautiful. One of those sights that is forever burned into my memory.
Our next planned stop was to see the waterfalls at the Glenariff Forest Park. We were on our way to the waterfalls at first. We got very close to the turn off when we saw a detour sign….I wasn’t thrilled about this because it meant more windy narrow road driving but Dave was sure that it wouldn’t be too far off, and it wasn’t. It was about 15 minutes and we arrived at the park. It was warm and sunny and peaceful. We were both ready to get out of the car and stretch our legs on a 3.5 km walk. I have to say incidentally that road signage threw me at time. Dave was on top of it thankfully and I made sure we were going the proper speed, but still, why mix them? The path that we took, the waterfall path, was beautiful. We walked along only encountering two others and Dave took many beautiful pictures and I kept making mental notes to remember my surroundings for a later date in time. It was very much like one of those inspirational email forwards with serene pictures of waterfalls in the wilderness, but this time it was in person! It was so relaxing and peaceful until the walk back up the hill. I felt like a 5th grader who didn’t want to and couldn’t quite do it. I was shocked at how sleepy all of the driving made me but Dave was encouraging and we got to the top parking lot from where we had started out. It was rewarding to know that we both made the trip to see such a beautiful natural sight.
We were getting tired and hungry though and it was time to move on. We took the detour back but I found a ‘short cut’ to the Drumkeerin B&B. This was a small road that wasn’t on our travel map for possibly some very obvious reasons. It was too narrow and the local traffic seemed to go really fast. Dave and I were laughing for most of it. We finally came to the end of the short cut and met up with the road that we would have gone back to after the detour. We thought we were on our way but not so much. The directions Mary McFadden had left were somewhat kludgy and we were tired and hungry. After backtracking a few times, examining the map, and looking for hidden meaning in the terse directions, we finally stopped at another B&B to ask for directions. Dave went in and found the owner who just happened to be on his way out to feed his brother’s cows at the house next to Drumkeerin, and agreed to let us follow, which we did. After some maneuvering and turning around in what seemed like nowhere we finally arrived at the top of the mountainside at the home of the McFadden’s. Joe answered the door and wasn’t as happy to see us as we were to see him until he realized that we were in fact the booked guests. [With the Northwest 200 motorcycle race the next weekend, all the B&Bs were getting a lot of drop-in traffic looking for vacancies.] The view from their front door was probably the most memorable of my trip. It was absolutely beautiful. As far as the eye could see there was Scotland, an isle outside of Larne, and the beautiful bay that at nightfall looked as though it could solely be the picture in promotion for visiting Northern Ireland in the first place.
Mary made Dave and I some tea and told us that there were basically two places to eat dinner (Upstairs at Joe’s & Harry’s Restaurant) and they were both so-so and their best advice was to visit one tonight and one the next night. So we went for it. (Harry’s to be exact) It was good. We had fish. I had salmon and Dave had some white fish in sauce. As usual a ton of food but with a Baileys cheese cake slice to top it off it’s no wonder we felt like rolling home. Good indulgence though.
We drove back to the McFadden’s to take a small walk around their place and to go to sleep. I never got used to the fact that the day stayed so light there for so long. It would still be dusk at 11pm.
I went in for a bath while Dave watched some TV. I managed to spill bathwater all over the bathroom floor in the process and finally made it to bed. It was a wonderfully exhausting day.
Wednesday May 14
[Steph writes…]
Early morning breakfast at the McFadden’s before our journey out to Bushmills, the rope bridge, and Giants Causeway.
I had some scrambled eggs with salmon (yummy) and Dave had an Ulster Fry. Mary’s version was the freshest that we had had thus far. Her eggs came straight from the shed on the back of the property where hens gave her a fresh production to cook breakfast with daily. It was wonderful. Her scones (made with self rising flour) we absolutely fabulous and put mine to shame, and her hospitality was superb.
We were trying to decide in which order we would tour the three designated sites that day as there were likely to be more tourists in this part of the country for a race that was going on. We decided to go to the rope bridge first and then Bushmills and end the day off with Giant’s Causeway.
[The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge was built by fishermen across a small chasm to get out to better waters.] When we arrived at the rope bridge driveway, which was slightly steep and narrow and hard to maneuver, we found ourselves in a parking lot with a walk ahead of us (about a mile or Km or whatever ). All fine and good but what we had thought was going to be a 20 minute quick stop became a morning adventure. We passed through the little ranger’s station and bought our tickets and started walking. It was about a 1 mile walk over to the bridge area. We finally got there. There is a ranger on the top of these very steep metal steps making sure there is no horseplay on the bridge. There were a group of college kids from MASS & NY in front of us, and no one directly behind us. Finally it was our turn to approach the steps and head for our turn across the bridge. I went first. It was a pretty view from the top and much more sturdy than I had anticipated which is a good thing. A few stable steps and I was across. Then it was Dave’s turn. He crossed too and I would say that it didn’t scare either of us. Across the bridge there were the tops of these cliffs with squishy dirt grass mounds on the top. We walked around a bit, took some pictures, and headed back.
Dave wasn’t feeling that well, but we continued on our way towards the Bushmills. When we got to the town itself we decided to have lunch at this little café before taking the tour. I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday and Dave and I walked up the main street to the café. I had some kind of curry and Dave had some chicken sandwich type of thing, but his belly was really hurting so he didn’t have much of an appetite.
When we got to the Old Bushmills Distillery the smell of alcohol was thick in the air. It was a pretty cool place that was built up around the original milling process area and we signed up for the next tour. The tour itself was much more enjoyable than I ever thought it would be. We got to see an overview of the entire process and even got to sample some whiskey at the end. It was perfect. We brought some of their special brew home for a friend and got back in the car for anticipating our drive back towards Giants Causeway.
The late afternoon sun made the drive even more beautiful, and when we arrived at what first looked like a huge tourist trap, we were pleasantly surprised after a long walk down the coastal front path to Giants Causeway. I kept thinking that our surroundings looked like a scene from a Monty Python film. [Giants Causeway is an ancient pathway from Ireland to Scotland, which the giant Finn McCool used to visit his lady friend in Scotland, until McCool’s rival in Scotland tore it up. Or, alternately, if you believe in science, it’s a lava flow from 60 million years ago which cooled and broke apart into thousands of polygonal basalt columns.]
There were many people there taking pictures and taking in the experience of being at such an historic wonder of nature. Dave and I walked around a bit and found some people with cameras that we thought might take good pictures of us in exchange for taking pictures of them. We spent some time there just relaxing and taking it all in. Finally we decided it was time to head back to our wonderful B&B and rest a bit before getting some dinner.
After the drive back and a stop to take a picture or two of incidental road signs, we made it back to our B&B. Dave still wasn’t feeling that well so he rested for a bit and then we headed out for some dinner.
This night we went to the OTHER restaurant in town, Upstairs at Joe’s. We sat upstairs (as it turns out there is literal meaning in the name) in an empty place sort of wondering where everyone else was. Dave had some potato pie and I had some Salmon and a glass of wine. We didn’t stay out long but we did enjoy our dinner in peace and quiet.
When we got back to the B&B Dave started to get a fever so he went to sleep and I watched some British variant of The Donald Trump apprentice show where the group was trying to make a go of selling bridal gowns and other miscellaneous wedding accessories at a bridal expo.
Dave slept through the night and by my accounts his fever broke in the wee hours of the morning. We got up and had some breakfast before parting ways and heading out towards the Republic of Ireland.
Dave had some poached eggs and toast and I had scrambled eggs with salmon. Very good. Over breakfast we asked whether we would have any problems crossing into the Republic – border checkpoints, customs, that sort of thing. Joe said no, they don’t bother with that. “Some people seem to think we’re in a different country here but those of us who live here know better.” A little coffee and a few pictures in front of their home looking out on to the ocean and we were on our way.
Thursday May 15
[Steph writes…]
The journey to County Donegal wasn’t terribly long. We crossed the border into the Republic of Ireland before lunch time, noticing different signage and a slightly different feel to the road, but we made it to Letterkenny by lunch time and ate a sandwich lunch at a café on the corner that we found after a minimal amount of searching. We picked up some post cards and were on our way.
There had been a loose agreement with the next B&B owner to set us up on a boat tour of the cliffs- Slieve League. We wanted to attempt to get there in enough time that it would still be an option to us to go.
When we arrived at the Ocean View B&B the owner’s teenage daughter greeted us and overwhelmed us with menus to look at for dinner. We were more interested in finding out about the boat trip that we had anticipated, so she called her mum who was back within 15 minutes. She then called the skipper of the Nuala Star, Paddy, and arranged for us to get to Teelin pier in about 30 minutes when the next trip (the last for the day) was set for departure. The roads there were very narrow, compact and a half size, but we made it.
When we got into the pier there were another group of people waiting to go. A family from Poland I believe. It wasn’t long before we were on the boat heading out.
There are really no words to describe how incredible the view and the entire trip were. Somewhat surreal for me, and a definite highlight of the trip. We saw the cliffs from unusually calm ocean water. There were little rock beaches where Paddy claimed he has dropped off swimmers in the past to stay for a while and swim and then collects them on a trip in the evening.
It was remarkable to listen to his stories of dolphins in the bay and trips that he has taken in the past. The boat trip lasted about 2 hours. When we got back to Teelin Pier I collected a rock to bring home for our fireplace mantle where we have several from other trips and one from giants causeway.
We took the winding road back to the Ocean View and relaxed a bit before heading to Kitty Kelly’s restaurant (
www.kittykellys.com ) for what I remember being one of my favorite dinners of the trip. When we walked in they sat us in the reception area and took our drink and dinner orders and then took us upstairs to our table. We thought the practice was a little odd until we realized what was going on. While waiting, the owner talked to us about the presidential primary campaign and Hillary Clinton. It surprised us a little that it was making such news over there as well. For dinner we both had fish dishes with John Dory, which is a local fish there apparently (Dave had a medley dish with John Dory and Monk Fish and Haddock), and they came with fresh asparagus. I had an oyster appetizer that was baked with cheese and bacon that was quite remarkable as well, and we both had indulgent excellent deserts. One of the selections was boozy ice cream if that gives you the picture.
After dinner we walked back to the Ocean View and relaxed for a bit. It stays daylight outside until after 11pm so it’s quite difficult to tell your body to go to sleep when it still looks as though you could be out and about, but Dave and I sat on the front patio and looked out over the very still ocean water and decided to head to bed to rest up for our next day of adventure to Sligo.
Friday May 16
[Steph writes…]
We got up for a breakfast at the ocean view, standard eggs and meats, and I forced Dave to eat some yogurt to help his stomach. Soon enough we were on our way to Sligo.
We stopped in Killybegs for a bit to wander around and look at the harbor – it’s one of the busiest fishing ports on the island. Then we continued on through Donegal Town and on down the west coast.
The most memorable part of this trip is a drive that we took on Rossnowlach beach. Literally we drove right onto a beach. I’ve never done this before and at first didn’t know if I could/should, but as it turns out, it was perfectly acceptable to drive onto the beach. At first approach we got little Leon stuck in the sand but with some quick maneuvering and Dave’s help, we got unstuck and parked our car. As we walked out on the off white sand in virtual seclusion we noticed how common it was for people to just drive out onto the beach there. We walked out to the break line and got our feet wet in some rather chilly water! It was very nice though. I was thinking at the time about my sisters, who were spending the week at their favorite hideaway in Jamaica and claim it’s the only place on earth to be with great beaches – this would have proved them wrong. I'd wager a guess they haven’t seen anything like what we were seeing before. Jamaica had nothing on this! (Well maybe water temp, but that’s it.)
From the beach we drove into a small town, Bundoran, for lunch. We stopped in a surf shop and got a poster to frame for the guest room. Then for lunch we had wraps at this little café, which were really filling, and got a brownie for the ride.
From there we drove through the corner of County Leitrim and into County Sligo. We stopped along the way at a small grocery store to see if we could purchase stamps, but the post office was closed for a lunch hour so we picked up a soda for the ride and continued on.
Sligo Town is a slightly more urban area than where we had been for the last few days. The driving was a bit more challenging but finally we found our way to the Tree Tops B&B. We arrived a bit early but the woman who was cleaning showed us to our VERY TINY upstairs room with an even more minuscule bathroom. Basically 2.5 feet wide and 5 feet in length. It gave me a sense of what claustrophobics go through on a daily basis. We decided to get a few things out of the car and see if we could find directions to the tombs. Dave found one of the owners who gave us some sketchy directions and a map and wasn’t of much assistance in telling us where to go to hear some traditional music that evening, but pointed us to some maybes.
Off to the Carrowkeel Neolithic tombs. This was a very strange experience. We drove up this long driveway like road to get to the farm like road that we had to take to get to the tombs. We had barely any gas. The car was scraping on the ground beneath us as it wasn’t paved but more of a path with livestock surrounding it and a grass patch in the middle. Finally, discussing for the entire trip to the top our plan for running out of gas, we got to what looked like a clearing.
When we stepped out onto the clearing it was somewhat difficult to decide where to go from there. It looked as though any signage from the past was long gone, but after some small amount of trial and error we headed further up the hill. This choice was validated by the enthusiastic archaeologist-like guy hiking down the other way talking about how interesting the tombs were. We continued and found our way to the first two tombs.
Dave decided to be adventurous and climb into each of them. The entire time I’m thinking if there is an earth quake this would not be good…although the chances for that were slim to none…I still wouldn’t have done it. I took some pictures of him which you will be able to see, and we decided to head back. We encountered some older folks from Norway on our way down. Their English wasn’t that great and when asked where we were from our response was the USA and they said the USSR? We said no, but they responded same thing anyway. It was somewhat comical. They showed us their book and gave us a little history in broken English and then Dave and I made our way back to find some dinner. We didn’t run out of gas, well diesel, but we didn’t run out, we made it to a gas station on our way back.
We found ourselves in downtown Sligo in no time scouting out a place for dinner and music. People were of little help. We had a few misguided thoughts but ended up, by chance, at this small café and had wonderful salmon pasta. Notice a theme here with the salmon. There is a lot of it there and it’s very fresh and very good. We enjoyed it and listened to a fellow playing his violin to an iPod for a while inside of the restaurant as it filled up.
From there we decided to go back to Treetops for a night in the tiny room.
Saturday May 17
[Dave writes…]
Saturday morning we packed up what little bags we had hauled upstairs to the room the night before, and went to breakfast. We sat with a couple from Coleraine who were visiting Sligo to escape the motorcycle race. The man was quite funny as he tried to warn Steph off from trying the black pudding that was served as part of our breakfast. “Yeh have a choice – don’t do it! It’s not worth it!” he cried. His wife countered, “Now don’t go on like that. She can try it if she wants to.” Steph tried it, and thereafter sided with the husband.
We left Sligo, stopping at a shoe store downtown so Steph could pick up a cute pair of red Clarks. Then we headed east to Northern Ireland. Crossing the border went so unnoticed that we missed the turnoff for the Marble Arch Caves and had to go back and look for it again. Misreading the road signs made things harder, and a couple of teenage girls tending the register at a petrol station proved that teenage girls aren’t much help anywhere. We finally found the right road, which kept getting narrower, and higher, until Steph was convinced I had no idea where we were… and then we came upon the car park. We went in and signed up for the next tour of the caves.
The Marble Arch Caves were remarkably interesting. There was a short descent from the visitor’s center to the entrance, and then another down into the ground where a pair of lightweight aluminum boats were waiting on the underground river to take us for a short ride. We were briefed on safety – both ours and that of the delicate rocks – and loaded into the boats for a short but memorable ride. We disembarked and began a much longer walk through the extensive cave system, as the tour guides operated the lighting system and talked all about the history of the caves, their discovery and exploration, and all the rock formations. We saw stalactites, stalagmites, flow stone, cave carpet, cave cauliflower, streams, ponds, tunnels that were once filled with running water and places where the rock was eroded to the point where it looked like it might collapse. After about an hour of walking, we finally exited and climbed the long steep staircases back to the visitor’s center. We bought some postcards and headed out.
We navigated back out to the main road and had some pizza in Enniskillen. After that, it was time for me to try driving. I had the advantage of a week spent acclimating to being on the left hand side of the road, but it was still challenging. Shifting with my left hand was not as confusing as I thought it would be, but estimating the amount of space on either side of the car was a little tricky. Ultimately my first turn at the wheel didn’t last long, as my driving style on the winding roads left Steph a little green. But at least I had tried it and Steph and I traded off driving for the rest of the trip.
It took only a few hours to finish crossing the island (including some U-turns in traffic in Newry and an unsuccessful stop to try to buy stamps) and we were back on the A2 Coastal Road, this time on the southern end of the coast making our way around the Mourne Mountains. The Mournes were lovely – low clouds masked the tops of the mountains, and tiny towns, really just clusters of houses and bars along the road, dotted the coast of the Irish Sea. We passed through Newcastle (a real town) and saw their new promenade along the beach, stopped at a nature preserve to finish our leftover pizza, and headed a little further to our final B&B, the Carriage House in Dundrum. Maureen showed us our very nice, comfortable room, made reservations for us at a nearby tavern, and described some local attractions we could visit to pass the rest of the afternoon. We opted to drive around a bit and then visit Dundrum Castle.
Dundrum Castle was built about the same time, and by the same Norman conqueror John de Courcy, as Carrickfergus Castle, but it’s been in ruins for about the past 200 years. Nonetheless it’s a beautiful site to visit and we had fun wandering around the grounds and looking out from the castle wall over the village and Murlough Bay below.
Hunger finally found us and we made our way to the nearby Maghera Inn, where the bartender introduced me to a Black and Tan, a delicious blend of, in this case, Bass and Guinness, and we feasted on lamb and salmon and chocolate cake. We hung around for a bit to listen to traditional Irish songs sung to a guitar and bodhrán, then headed to bed.
Sunday May 18
[Steph writes…]
Sunday started off a little later than the rest of our vacation. We had breakfast at 8:30am and enjoyed sitting in the sunroom at the Carriage house and enjoying a conversation with Maureen the host and looking out into her beautiful garden. We had scrambled eggs, mushrooms, sausage and ham. It was totally yummy. We had plans to go biking in the mountains, so she called David Maginn for us to arrange the bike rental drop off. He said that he’d come around 10:30am so Dave and I went back upstairs to relax a little.
[Dave writes…]
The bikes finally arrived around 11am, and two sets of bikes at that – a pair of knobby-tire mountain bikes and a pair of upright cruising bikes. On top of that unexpected choice, David was making suggestions about meeting him at some parking lot in another town nearer to our planned departure point so we wouldn’t have to try to fit the bikes in our car. We weren’t quite ready to hit the road yet, so we arranged to meet him down the road at his holiday rental cottages in a wee bit. We got ready to ride, found him, and decided to simply collect the bikes from him there. We opted for the cruisers on the idea that they would be more comfortable for a longer ride. Unfortunately we later discovered that they didn’t fit very well, and the angle of the seats made for an uncomfortable ride. We drove around for a bit, stopped by the shore in Annalong to hang out in the sun on some big rocks, and headed into Newcastle for lunch. We went to a little highbrow European café where Steph had a tuna fish sandwich and I had an odd sandwich with turkey and cranberry stuffing. We headed over to Kilkeel, where our recommended route started, and tried to get some water and snacks from the local supermarket. Trying to pay proved to be a problem – Europe has been transitioning to credit cards with an embedded chip in them, and this store no longer accepted ones with just a magnetic strip. At this point, rather than ride into the mountains with no supplies on misfit bikes, we decided to scale back our plans and just ride from the B&B in Dundrum down to the promenade in Newcastle. A healthy 9 miles round trip, and very enjoyable.
[Steph writes…]
It was mostly great once we got going except for some minor adjustments to the seat which was really hurting me, but Dave swapped bikes with me and we went for it. It was a beautiful ride. We rode right into the promenade and stopped at the edge so Dave could take some pictures. In the meantime there was this guy walking up the strand with no shirt on and it was chilly out and he was all pumped up and looked like he had iodine all over. It was rather odd, Hercules moment I guess. We rode on from there to find a place for ice cream. We were at the end of our trip and the end of our sterling cash so we needed to be slightly economical in our decision. We rode through some crowds of people and decided to walk our bikes until we found something. We got to the end of the strand and there was this candy shop that we locked our bikes up outside of but when we got in there it was just soft serve so we went along to a regular ice cream shop and got some real ice cream. I got rum raisin and Dave got mint chip. Very good. We went down to the strand and walked a little and sat down on a bench and talked a little before going to get our bikes for the ride back to Dundrum. It ended up being such a nice day. We got home with a little effort, relaxed, and had a delicious dinner next door at the Buck’s Head Inn.
Monday May 19
[Steph writes…]
I woke up before the alarm clock and before Dave. Ever since I missed that flight in Nashville I get nervous about oversleeping. It was so nice to wake up at the Carriage House. The pillows reminded me of the kind I had when I was a kid. I got up and took a shower and started getting things together and got Dave moving along. We had a plan to have breakfast at 7:30am and have the car packed and ready by then. We met our time line. Breakfast was awesome but big.
Maureen (who reminded me of my Sunday school/piano teacher from long ago) made up some scrambled eggs with mushrooms, sausage, and ham. We also had some hot scones from the oven, some OJ, water, coffee, and I had some granola stuff. I know that I was very full when I left the table but I was thinking it might be a while before we could eat again.
I signed the guest book after talking to her a little bit about how nice it was there. In reality it was very nice. She was somewhat anxiety ridden about what she could do to help up out and worried about the bike ride from the previous day. Dave assured her it was ok. Then he cleaned the huge bird craps that were in the sight path of the driver’s seat off of the windshield before our short trip to Belfast. We just needed to fill up the car and stop at the post office which we planned to do on the way.
As we left I was a little sad that our trip was over.
Driving at this point was not as difficult as it was on day one and I was pretty sure that we could get to the post office and to the airport with little troubles. And we had none. We found a post office on the way. Their gas stations have post offices in them. Sort of like convenience stores. We walked in, waited in a short line until the post office opened, and got 23 post card stamps and air mail stickers. We went over to an adjacent copy machine and stamped and stuck them all and got them to the woman at the window.
It wasn’t long after that that we arrived at George Best [Belfast City Airport]. We successfully returned the rental car with a full tank of diesel and no new scratches or dents (way to go us). We then made our way to the terminal. It was a little confusing because we were flying through BMI which we were unfamiliar with. We had to self check in and then proceed to do our bag drop in step two. At that point we just had the two big suitcases to check. We packed our gifts and extra take homes into a small carryon duffle bag. We made our way to the security line and I threw away the rest of my coffee from the gas station. The guy at the desk said no liquids right and I said that we just got rid of them. We proceeded to take our shoes off and load up the trays. When we got through security I was standing at the end of the table. The x-ray guy was looking at the duffle bag and said “What is in the bottle?” and I looked at Dave and I looked at the TSA guy and we both said “Whiskey.” It was like one of those moments where time goes really slow and you’re like ooohhh duh.
I started to get a little panicked about it. I thought that they would make us throw it out but the man said we could check it. We made our way out of the security line and back to the bag drop that was busier. Dave was calm as he always is. I was sort of freaking out because she couldn’t get our checked bags back as they were already on their way to the plane. We were able to add an additional checked item though, and luckily I had packed a paper bag and we took some breakable non-Whiskey items out of the duffle bag, padded it with our jackets, and sent it off. Hoping it would make it to Wisconsin. She printed us out new boarding passes because security had already scanned our first ones. We then went back to security where I apologized for making a fuss about it to Dave, and we just sat there and relaxed while we waited to board.
BMI kinda sucks. Their seats in coach are a little crammed and I am a little spoiled. But the flight was ok. I drifted off while Dave wrote in the notebook. Finally we landed at Heathrow. You have to walk through what seems like a mile and a half of hallways and security check points just to get to the connecting gate areas. We got there and talked to the guy at the United counter. He printed out yet another set of boarding passes that said United on them not BMI. So at this point we had 3.
From there we decided where to eat lunch. We were going to go for a bagel place but then decided to walk around. We found TGI Fridays and decided it was the best way to go. We sat down and ate lunch. Dave had a Monterey cheese burger thing and I had a chicken sandwich. Both of us had their vegetable extract sweetened version of diet coke and our Russian waiter checked us out with his portable credit card swiper where he inadvertently shorted himself 63p because he typed in .18 and not .81 as a tip.
As soon as we were done it was time to go to the boarding area. We walked what seemed like a half mile to the gate where we went through a pat down and security screening once again. It was lovely. The nice woman who was putting her hands on my thighs told me how much she liked my new red shoes. Dave was looking at me winking. It was funny. We waited a little and listened to some BBC news of the earthquake in China before boarding. We got to our seats and the economy plus section was just about empty. So there was a little more space and a little less crying screaming kids.
Dave watched a movie called Jumper and I moved up a row to stretch out and watch Grace is Gone. They fed us some hot bad food. I had some chicken and green mushy stuff and Dave had lasagna. After the first movie I went back to talk to Dave for a bit, and we relaxed together and watched Charlie Wilson’s War. We had gone to Sundance and seen it a few months ago and both liked the movie. It’s pretty good. After that we had a little fun and played some cards. Dave won the game of war. We talked a little and I feel asleep for a short time after trying to read a bit of the book I started 4 trips ago.
When I woke up we talked and watched the map and ate a little. United was good about giving us food on the plane. We got this little sandwich, a bag of crisps, and a Twix bar. We just talked until we landed.
When we got into Chicago it wasn’t that bad. Customs line and walk was shorter than the one that we encountered when we entered London on the way in and we were out in no time. We had to recheck our bags only after trying to see if there was an earlier flight to Madison, which there wasn’t. From there we took the airport rail to terminal 3, which was my fault, it was the wrong terminal, we then went to 2 which was also wrong but we only found that out after checking the screens in the commuter terminal. We went to E2a to get a shuttle to terminal 1c gates. From there we found the red carpet lounge where after a few minutes of trying to find boarding passes and explaining my frequent flyer status, the woman behind the counter let us in. No wonder they charge you a few hundred dollars a year to use these lounges. It made me look at O’Hare in a totally different way. It is a much more relaxed environment. We sat there. Dave was dead tired and I got some coffee and put my feet up. The thing is we sat next to the water cooler and I couldn’t stand the sound of people pouring water. Dave noticed my annoyance and suggested we move, which we did. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes. In the middle of my nap this woman came in to the area we were in and started making a phone call to cancel her oncologist appointment. She was SO LOUD. It was crazy. We talked a little bit more in a haze and finally made our way over to the gate… where again we got another boarding pass. We were on our way home.
The flight to Madison was short and I think I fell asleep for 5 minutes or so, but soon enough we landed, got our bags, and made our way out to the cab corral. There was a bit of confusion but finally we got someone to take us on what seemed like the slowest ride from MSN home ever.
It was good to be home.
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