Sunday, 3^rd August                             BELFAST  -  DROGHEDA  -  DUBLIN

Robyn writes: Well, here we are in Dublin, at the end of our Irish holiday. The sun is shining (on and off), it’s 21 degrees and there are people everywhere. The All-Ireland Senior Gaelic Women's Football final is being played here this afternoon between Dublin and Meath. I’m assuming Dublin’s colours are green and gold, because that’s what everyone is wearing!

We got everything organised and packed into the car this morning after a bit of a slow start. It was rainy and overcast when we woke, so very hard to get going. But it started to clear even before we had left at a bit before nine, which was a good sign. We headed down the roads to the south and were soon on the motorway. It’s a pretty quick trip from Belfast to Dublin; only a couple of hours, and we needed to have Jo to the airport at Dublin by 12 so she could catch her 3pm flight home. We figured we had time to make a diversion for morning tea instead of just pulling over in some services, so we set a path for Drogheda. This is an ancient town, and bigger than you think, with 44000 people. It was first settled around 1200 and is a port city on the Boyne River.  The site of the Battle of the Boyne is just a few kilometres to the west of it. There’s the remains of a castle and a fort on the high ground, signs of its military importance. It’s also a very popular place on a Sunday morning; it took us quite a while to find a park, but we finally did, and had a very nice morning tea in Nero’s. It was a nice break, and we were soon on the road again.

                                  Our street in Belfast as we packed the car. Lots of terrace houses!

                                                  Drogheda, on the Boyne River

                                                                Old castle gatehouse and towers

                                The Tholsel (shire buildings - 1700s) and Millmount Fort behind

We dropped Jo off at the airport just after 11.30, so in plenty of time for her flight. She got through check-in fine, and the good people at Qatar Airlines even forgave her for her carry on luggage being 8kg over! (We have shopped a bit.)

                                                            Bon voyage, Jo!
Then came the most stressful part of the trip for us – we had to drive to our hotel in O’Connell St in the city centre, drop me and the luggage off, Lex take the car back to the airport car hire place, and hop on a bus to come back into the city. Sounds simple…..it wasn’t. Navigating the streets of Dublin is torture; there are so many one-way streets in no pattern, rhyme or reason. The Google maps navigator kept only wanting to take us to across the road from the hotel, but with a pile of luggage to drop off, and buses, cars and trams and a traffic island in between, that wasn’t going to work. I kept trying to navigate us here, but we kept coming up against no right turns, no left turns, for a horribly long time. Anyway, we did finally make it, Lex pulled up in what appeared to be a bus lane out in front, we whipped everything into the lobby and he zoomed off!

                                                      Hard-to-get-to hotel
Fortunately, the young man on the desk at the Holiday Inn Express took pity on me, agreed that Dublin roads are hell on earth, found a vacant room (even though it was still over an hour until check-in time) and booked me in. He even helped me carry everything up to the room. I can’t speak highly enough of the young blokes in hospitality in Ireland! I collapsed in a heap, made myself a fortifying cup of tea, then went out into O’Connell St in search of a very late lunch (it was after 1.30 by that stage – it had taken THAT long.) I found a Dunne’s Store with a café, and had a wonderful shepherd’s pie with vegetables, which was so good. Then I had a wander around the shops in the sunshine and came back to do a major repack before our ferry trip tomorrow.

                                              The Spire - major landmark in O'Connell St
From tomorrow morning at 6, most of Ireland, Scotland and northern Wales and England are under a yellow storm warning, which is pretty serious here. Storm Floris is approaching, and they are worried it will do some damage. Most storms come in winter when the trees are bare and the wind just goes straight through, but of course they’re under full leaf cover at the moment, and lots of people are out camping and on the roads as it’s a Bank Holiday weekend. We got an email to say that our planned early morning ferry has been cancelled due to the storm, but we can get on the later one instead, as it’s much bigger and obviously safer. Hopefully it will still all go to plan, but I’ve pulled out the seasickness tablets and put them in my backpack, just in case!

Lex was back from dropping off the car at about 3.30, and glad of a chance to have a rest. It was good to have some down time – I did a major repack and managed to consolidate some luggage, wrote this, and washed my hair while he checked up on travel arrangements for tomorrow now everything’s been pushed back.

We went out for an early tea just after 6, just around the corner to Parnell’s pub. Charles Parnell was an Irish nationalist politician who was big in the Home Rule movement. There’s a statue of him just outside our hotel and Parnell Square is behind us. I must say the pub named in his honour did us a wonderful meal – Lex had the Irish Stew broth and I had the roast beef. I just couldn’t finish mine, but the meat was glorious. We have had some wonderful meals here.

                                                             Delicious meals in the Parnell

It will be an early night tonight, as we have to get up early for the ferry. At least we can have a quick breakfast here before we leave. Lex has gone for one last walk to the Liffey in the evening light. Another big travelling day tomorrow – 3 countries in one day!

Postscript: Dublin did beat Meath. There are a lot of very happy people outside.