Andrew & Sarah’s Blog

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.

Today we left Sligo and headed north east toward Belfast. The weather was once again dull, very windy and rainy. After finding our way out of Sligo we stopped at Glencar Waterfall which is a nice little waterfall which feeds an equally nice lake.

After driving a bit longer it soon became clear we were coming into Northern Ireland, as all the road signs once again changed this time to British road signs. We passed through some very nice although small villages and stopped to take some photos of some old style church’s and castles.

We passed through Enniskillen, Omagh, Cookstown before coming to Ardboe, where we visited an old Abby and the Ardboe High Cross. From here we continued on to the M1 motorway which brought us into Belfast. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Belfast and viewing some of the murals painted on the walls here.

I’m currently writing this blog post while sitting in the restaurant where we had dinner borrowing someones free wifi. The restaurant is the Gourmet Burger Bank. The waiter here proudly told us that gourmet burgers originated in NZ!

Today we drove further to the northwest. We saw more of the Irish country side realised we were getting deeper into the Irish heartland when the road signs changed from English to Irish. This may have contributed to the small detour we took which saw us arrive in a tiny fishing village at the end of a peninsula.

We got back on the planned route and continued on to Clifton where we had lunch at Guys Pub. As the weather today was dull, windy and rainy (I’m told this is normal for Ireland) we continued driving and didn’t stop much. Preferring to view the country side from the warmth of the car.

We continued on through Westport and Castlebar until we reached Sligo which is where we are staying tonight. We had a walk around town which has I nice river running through it then went and found the B&B where we are staying tonight

Today started at 8am when Matt and I caught the bus out to the airport to pick up a rental car we are using to tour around Ireland.
Today we headed west toward the coast, heading for the Cliffs of Moher. We stopped for a bite of lunch along the way in the small village of Gort. After lunch I took over driving from Matt. The roads however slowly or not so slowly got narrower and winder than the motorways Matt had been driving on. This was made driving a little more interesting especially when meeting cars, trucks and buses coming the opposite direction. But with my skillful driving we made it to the Cliff of Moher.
The Cliffs are absolutely stunning; they are just huge sheer cliffs that rise up out of the ocean. You really do need to see them in real life to appreciate the sheer size and beauty of them.

After leaving the cliffs we drove up the coast through the Burren, which is basically a huge area just covered in rocks. It’s just amazing the size and volume of rocks in the area which just goes on for miles and miles.
We arrived in Galway and found the guesthouse where we were staying. After settling in we walked down into town to for a look around and to find somewhere for dinner. Galway is quite a nice mid sized Irish town with many narrow streets and old buildings which I’m beginning to realise is normal for towns in Ireland. We had dinner at a small pub, the meal was good and fairly well priced.

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.