Andrew & Sarah

The final day of our road trip we head left Portrush and head south along the East coast. The weather today was slightly better than previous days, we even got glimpses of blue sky at times. However there was still a freezing wind all day.

The drive down the east coast took us through many small villages and along the rocky coast line, through Belfast and back to Dublin. We arrived back to the rental car depot around 2:30pm then caught a bus back to Matt and Kats apartment.

From my observations from the road trip i have decided that Ireland is a much older country than NZ with a lot of history and character. There are various landscapes which resemble parts of the NZ countryside.

• My Photo Gallery
• Matt’s Photo Gallery
• Matt’s blog summarising the road trip.

This morning we picked Kat up from the Belfast Railway station. Kat caught the train up from Dublin and is spending the weekend touring the northern part of Ireland with us. We took the M2 motorway out of Belfast and proceeded north until we reached the town of Ballymena.

We decided we would stop in Ballymena for a bite to eat and a coffee. However we we sadly disappointed at the lack of quality cafes. We settled on one which seemed to be the best there was however it was not that stunning. We wandered back through the town then continued driving north.

We reached the northern coast at a town called Ballycastle. From here we followed the coast line to the west. At Carrick-A-Rede there are some impressive cliffs and islands just off the coast. One of these cliffs is connected to the mainland by rope bridge. Unfortunately however they take the bridge down in the winter. We still got a good look at the islands, beach and cliffs. Despite the ‘Authentic Irish Weather’ as Kat put it.

From Carrick-A-Rede we continued along the coast a little bit further to the Gaints Causeway which is an area of about 40,000 interlocking Basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal.

We then decided to visit the Old Bushmills Distillery where they make Old Bushmills Whiskey. We had a late lunch here before starting a tour of the distillery. The tour its self was interesting as we got to see how them make the whiskey in a real working distillery.

From here we continued on to Portrush where we are staying for the night. We checked into the guest house where we are staying then went out to find somewhere for dinner. We picked a restaurant called Coast which served pizzas and pastas mainly. This restaurant got extremely busy while we were them with people coming in and being told there was over an hour wait for a table. The food wasn’t bad and was quite well priced so we couldn’t complain.

Well i made it to Ireland. With a few hiccups along the way!

It started with my flight out of NZ from Auckland Airport. After saying good bye to those that came to see me off i went through to the departures area to the gate lounge. A few minutes latter it was paged over the intercom that my flight had been delayed by an hour due to engineering requirements. I walked around and went and got something to eat and a bottle of water for on the plane. Then finally an hour late they started boarding the plane. Once we were seated on the plane the captain announced that they just had to run some tests then the plane would depart…. an hour later we finally departed.

The first leg of the flight from Auckland to Los Angeles was fairly uneventful. I managed to get a little bit of sleep but not a lot.

When we arrived in LA where we had to get off the plane go through US immigration then move to a Transit Lounge. We waited here about 2hours then started boarding then departed for London.

This leg of the flight I was upgraded from economy to Premium Economy which meant i got better service, more room, better food and a few other bonuses! I managed to sleep a little on this leg too.

We arrived into Heathrow at 12:17 about 2hours later than scheduled due to the delay leaving Auckland. Then finally disembarked the plane at 12:40 This caused me a few problems problems as i had to catch my connecting flight to Dublin which departed at 1:25pm. I rushed down through Immigration (Managed to skip to front of queues) picked up my bagage then proceeded across to the other terminal where my flight to Dublin left from. I arrived at the check in desk just as they were making the final boarding call. But as it was a 10-15min walk from check-in desk to departure gate they told me I had missed the flight. Fortunately they rebooked me onto another flight that day. However this flight did not leave until 5pm-ish this meant more sitting around the Airport!

I finally arrived in Dublin at 7pm 18th Feb. Got off the plane and went through Immigration which consisted of a lady glancing at my passport and stamping it. Picked up my bags and went through customs (Consisted of and area of idle x-ray machine) to the arrivals area where i found Matt waiting to pick me up. Took a taxi back to his apartment had dinner then got some much needed sleep.