Leaving Donegal in our motorhome Vtee, we drove toward Londonderry, and then suddenly we were in Northern Ireland, part of the UK.
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| Londonderry gate |
Arriving in Londonderry (also known as Derry), we eventually found our campsite, Elaghvale Camping Park.
The next day, with no bus services in this area, we caught a taxi into Londonderry City.
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| On top of the Londonderry wall |
What an amazing walled city it is, with a high, wide and very solid 17th century wall going right around the compact old city. The wall is in great shape, and has 7 gates and 24 restored cannons – we walked half way around it.
The actual city now extends well outside the ancient walls, but the inside was very walkable, with interesting narrow winding streets.
Several streets are pedestrianised. Cars did drive inside the walls but the streets are narrow, and there seemed to be an amazing number of parking wardens roaming around.
Within the walls, we saw lots of interesting and grand buildings, some spectacular churches including St Columb’s Cathedral, and a large number of pubs.
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| Bogside mural and Free Derry monument |
Just outside the walls is the neighbourhood called Bogside. This area now has some spectacular wall murals aimed at ensuring the struggles between the British and Irish in this area, are not forgotten.
Nearby is the “Free Derry” monument of remembrance dedicated to the same cause.
The city is on the River Foyle which has a number of bridges spanning it. Two caught our attention.
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| Peace Bridge of the River Foyle, Londonderry |
One was the lovely curving Peace Bridge, designed for pedestrians and cyclists. The other was Craigavon Bridge, one of the few double-decker road bridges in the whole of Europe.
After a lovely time in Londonderry, we set off north around the Celtic Sea road enjoying the amazing views.
After a while, we stopped to view the interesting Dunluce Castle. The Castle is a ruin of a medieval castle that was the seat of Clan McDonnell.
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| Dunluce Castle on Atlantic cliffs |
It is perched on the edge of a huge rocky outcrop overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with extremely steep drops on either side. You can only get to it by a bridge.
Soon after that, we the reached the Old Bushmills Distillery which is Ireland’s oldest working distillery (circa 1608), where they produce a distinctive single malt whiskey.
We took the guided tour to discover how this whiskey is made, and at the end we had a choice of whiskeys to taste – it was such a hardship!
Actually, Leigh is not a whiskey person but Marg was in seventh-heaven.
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| Marg enjoying a tipple at Old Bushmills Distillery |
One main difference is that Irish whiskey goes through three distillations, whereas Scotch whiskey goes through two.
We also learned that the secret to the smokiness and other flavours in the whisky is due to the barrels that they are stored in – barrel buying is, understandably, a very secret and big business.
After lunch at the Distillery, where Leigh had haggis, we moved on to visit the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage site at the top of Northern Island on the Atlantic coast.
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| Giant's Causeway (UNESCO) |
The Causeway, which we walked out onto with many other tourists, is actually a spectacular configuration of basalt columns sticking out of the sea at the foot of some basalt cliffs. They were formed through volcanic activity over 60 million years ago.
The shape of each column is truly amazing as they are geometric, with each being pretty well the same shape and size. They reminded us of the geometric patterns in the salt crust of the Salar de Uyuni we visited in Bolivia in 2016.
We asked a warden about this, and she said that what causes the columns unusual shape is still a mystery.
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| Leigh on the Giant's Causeway (UNESCO) |
Leigh was dwarfed standing beside some of the columns, which shows how tall they were!
Moving on, we arrived at Carrick-a-Rede. Carrick-a-Rede is a 20-metre-long rope-bridge suspended almost 30 metres above the sea. It links tiny Carrick Island with the mainland.
Only a small number of people are allowed on the Bridge at any one time, so we paid for our ticket then waited until it was our turn. Shortly after, we made our way down a long pathway and many steps to the Bridge. It turned out to be a stunning cleft in the rocks, crossed by a flimsy rope bridge.
Apparently, in 1755 a local fisherman set up his nets in this rocky cleft to catch Atlantic salmon.
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| Carrick-a-Rede fisherman's cottage |
He built a cottage on the extreme edge of the cliff face and every morning, would empty his abundant catch into a large sack, throw it over his shoulder, then cross this rickety bridge to his horse and cart (later a 4-wheel drive), then go on to the market.
After a few generations of successful fishing, salmon stocks ran out. So he sold up and left this bridge, which is now a major tourist attraction.
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Marg (left) going down steep steps to the rope bridge |
It was windy crossing the bridge but the view was fantastic, especially when looking down to the narrow gap below where the sea rushed through.
After the exhilarating sea air of Little Carrick, we moved on through tiny roads heading east.
Then we came across a place called the Dark Hedges. The Hedges is an amazing avenue of twisted beech trees planted each side of a road in the 18th century.
Over the years, the trees have grown so that they meet in the middle, forming a long and weird looking tunnel.
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| The Dark Hedges |
Apparently they used this place when filming part of the Game of Thrones.
Sometime after that, we arrived in Belfast where we stayed at Dundonald Touring Caravan Park, a camp that is very efficiently run by the Belfast City Council.
Although the camp is on the outskirts of Belfast City, it is well served by buses, and it was only a 5-minute walk to grab a bus that took us right into the City centre.
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. It’s a biggish city (population about 340,000 in 2016), with a lot of history.
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| Belfast City Hall |
It is a very easy city to walk around and we enjoyed looking at all the very grand buildings in the centre. There is an imposing City Hall that fills an entire city block and sits in beautiful grounds. It dates back to the 1890’s.
We walked to the Belfast Cathedral and then around all the surrounding streets, which are interspersed with lots of little lanes, all having a mix of quaint and old buildings.
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| Leigh in front of Belfast's Clock Tower |
We visited the Clock Tower and the Linen Hall Library building, and many other historic buildings.
As with other cities in Ireland, there are lots of pubs that are full of character and beautifully maintained.
We walked around the waterfront to the dockyards. Belfast has a huge history in ship building and it was Belfast where the Titanic was built. The dockyards are now called the Titanic Quarter, and the whole area is devoted to the history of that ill-fated ship.
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| Titanic Belfast building |
We think that the Titanic is probably more of an attraction now than when it was sailing, as it is currently a huge tourist enterprise.
There is an interesting and modern building on the docks where the Titanic was built, called “Titanic Belfast”. In there, is every kind of memorabilia, movie, etc etc that you can imagine, regarding the Titanic – it was almost overwhelming.
The SS Nomadic was also on display. Nomadic was called the little sister to Titanic and was built alongside her in a similar style, but much smaller. SS Nomadic was used to transfer passengers out to Titanic at Cherbourg before her fatal voyage. It was a very interesting area to visit.
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| Harmony of Belfast statue |
We walked back past Queen’s bridge which had an interesting statue officially called the Harmony of Belfast but called locally, Nuala with the Hoop.
By the time we got back into the centre of the city we felt we had walked a long way and seen a lot of Belfast, so it was time to get the bus home again.
At the camp ground we met up with a couple from Nottingham, some Aussies, and South African Aussies for drinks and good chat. It was a pleasant few hours sharing travel experiences.
After a few days, it was time to move on, with our next stop being Dublin, back in Ireland.
This is part of a bigger blog on our travels around England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The first blog is called "Off to do the UK in a motorhome".