Thursday, 21st August         PORTRUSH - BELFAST

Robyn writes: It's been a big day! We were up at around 7.30 to another cold and breezy Northern Ireland morning. Of course it had been raining heavily overnight, but things cleared a bit and we even saw some sunshine. We had the usual lovely breakfast then packed everything (with some difficulty - juggling two big ports in our little room wasn't easy!), paid Janice and said farewell to Portrush.

The view from our window this morning (somewhat specked by rain) of the town hall on the left and looking towards the beach and fun fair.

Trying to pack in our teeny room was lots of fun!

We stopped at a lookout and realized that we were looking down on the rope bridge (left of photo). You can see the rain squall coming towards us and we could hardly see any of the Scottish islands or mainland.

Rather than take the direct route to Belfast, which is not much more than 100km, we decided to take the scenic coastal Causeway route down. We really enjoyed the trip through so much more beautiful and dramatic scenery. As we zoomed past the rope bridge, we spared a thought for the people shivering there in the rain! We stopped at a lookout a bit further along, and realised that we were actually looking down at the bridge and island. The weather was very overcast and rain squalls kept sweeping across as we watched (in fact, one swept right over us and I bolted for the car!) We followed the the coast right around and all of the way down the eastern side of the coast until Carrickfergus, where we passed the 12th century castle in pouring rain.

We headed inland for a while to see the mountain range there known as the "Glens of Antrim". Truly spectacular scenery and waterfalls.

Then we went back to the coastal route and the sea again.

We were hungry by this time as it was after one, so just past the castle, we spotted Papa Browns, a grill restaurant, so we pulled in there and had a lovely meal - Lex had a great wild mushroom pasta and I had stuffed potato skins and salad. Huge serves and we were so full!

Then we had to find our way for the last 10km or so into Belfast itself. A bit of a worry at first as the satnav decided to have a hissy fit and stop working! Luckily after 5 minutes or so it decided to rejoin us, and we then managed to get ourselves into the city. Interesting as there were lots of turns and we took a few wrong ones...but in the end, we navigated our way successfully to the laundry address we'd found on the internet. The nice ladies there said that they'd wash, dry and fold our load for only 7.70 pounds, so we very happily thrust it at them and promised to pick it up at 6. Belfast is interesting - it's obviously a much bigger city than Derry, but the shadow of the Troubles seems to hang over it much more in some ways. We passed several buildings which are still surrounded by huge wire fences, and even when you look out of our hotel window there are two lots of barbed wire fences.... It will be interesting to see what the city centre is like tomorrow.

Our room here is much more spacious than our last!

Outlook is not so nice though - there are lovely green fields in the distance, but razor wire in the foreground...



The lovely greenhouse in the botanic gardens, dating back to the early 1800s

Stunning main building at Queen's University

We easily found our way from there to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, which is nearby, and booked in. Our room is lovely and big, with a sofa and a very spacious desk. Sooo much bigger than our last room! Once we'd got our things upstairs, we decided to go out and see a bit of the local area (we're in the university quarter). We walked to the Ulster Museum through the Botanical Gardens, and had about three quarters of an hour to have a look around it. It closed at 5, so then we walked back past the uni and through the local restaurant quarter and had a look around. We chose a Japanese restaurant, Sakura, and booked it for 7pm. Then we headed in the direction of where we thought the laundry was, and though we had a bit of trouble finding it, we finally tracked it down again and retrieved our clothes, now clean and folded (they have the confusing habit in Belfast of chosing one name and having both a street and avenue with it - or in one case we've spotted University Road, University Street and University Avenue...all in close proximity!) At least the rain had cleared and it was quite a nice afternoon - only needed one jacket, not two or more. Belfast does seem quite a bit warmer than the north.

We had just enough time to head back to our hotel, shower and change then stroll along to our Japanese restaurant, where we had a huge and delicous meal - Lex had spicy minced pork ramen and I had chicken udon noodles. We are both still so full! Hopefully we'll have a good night's sleep before heading out to explore Belfast tomorrow.