Justin Of The North....Of Ireland

G'Day Everyone!

I promise to make this one a bit more brief than my last waffle-fest. We've just wrapped up the second of our Irish adventures. This time we hit Northern Ireland, taking off from Dublin, heading up to spend our first night in Derry/Londonderry (it's a long story, but it's known by both names). Our second night was in Belfast.

As many of you know the whole Northern Ireland thing has been a complicated issue for decades and our tour covered a lot of the political history of the region. On the way up to Derry we stopped in at a Dunluce Castle for some quick photos and got a bit of Stone Age history at neolithic site.










We got into Derry and got an excellent walking tour of the town, explaining how the "troubles" all came about, how Derry withstood a siege for three months, and we also took a walk through the site of the Bloody Sunday massacre. Some of the wall mural artwork was brilliant, I'm not saying for the message (I'm sitting on the fence here) but for the craftsmanship. The photos should speak for themselves anyway.

In a very inappropriately funny moment, our guide was giving a very sombre speech about the unnecessary loss of life throughout the troubles when a maniac ice cream driver flew past with the Benny Hill Show theme blasting from his speakers.

After leaving Derry we visited the Giants Causeway and a rope bridge. Great photos and millions of tourists at the Causeway. The rope bridge photos didn't really turn out as the camera was trying to focus on the drops of water that had landed on the lens. Yes, Ireland is one bloody wet place. It pretty much rained constantly for our Northern Ireland tour.

We had a big night out in Belfast. We went out for dinner with everyone from the tour and then headed to the Royal Liquor Saloon. It's a "Ye Olde" pub that is owned by the National Trust. So it's pretty much a heritage listed pub. Many Guinness' and a whisky or two later and we moved onto another pub.

In the middle of the night I woke up needing to piss really badly. I went out the wrong door and locked myself out of our room and found myself standing in the hostel hallway in my underwear. Needless to say that Mel wasn't impressed when I had to wake her up to let me in.

This morning had some Belfast cab drivers take us on a tour of Shankill Road and Bombay Street. Two notorious hot spots throughout the whole Protestant vs Catholic thing. Again there were some impressive murals and we also dropped by the headquarters of Sinn Fein.

Okay, that will do for now. I did write down more details in my notebook but if I get into more detail this whole log will turn into an epic. So, we leave Dublin for London tomorrow to overnight in a hostel before heading off on our European Camping Extravaganza! Can't wait.

Also, yes I am getting sloppy but I really don't have time to go over this with a fine tooth comb and correct typos. So there. And don't forget to check out the new Ireland and Northern Ireland photo albums.

We hope all is well and I'll be in touch soon.

Take it easy.

Justin.