New country! And it’s lovely! Our first impressions were definitely aided by the fact that as soon as we rolled off the ferry the rain stopped and the sun came out!
Our campground in Belfast was pretty funny. It is next to (and run by) the local ice-skating rink, that also has mini-golf and laser ‘urban combat’, and is also next to a multiplex movie theatre (Rise of the Planet of the Apes – not bad). Fun. There was only one other caravan when we get there – and of course they turned out to be Aussie’s. The guy was a truck driver (battler!) who made “a fortune” driving trucks in the 80’s (how much can you earn to describe it as a fortune?) and we really enjoyed sharing some travelling stories and experiences.
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| Camping off season - note the complete lack of anything parked behind me. Those are 'double sided' lamb chops on the BBQ. |
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| Our landlord's - the guys standing in front are waving at me. Because I'm pretty. |
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| The Pea of Truth. We put this on the table to see if the van is on a lean. |
We made a determined effort to be better tourists in Belfast and got on one of those hop-on, hop-off buses. The two competing operators almost came to blows trying to sell us the tickets- it was like a comedy show with their rapid accented sales pitches going right over our heads.
The most striking part of the tour was the Shankill Road area and the interface between the Catholic and Protestant areas. There are murals on the end walls of houses and shops commemorating the Irish dead in the wars, and also the paramilitary organisations and the bombings. We also saw the ‘peace walls’ that separate the housing areas from one another. There are 300 or so walls in existence, and the one we saw was 3 miles long – they are about 15m tall, and have gates every so often that are shut after 7:30pm and all weekend. It was quite sobering. In a recent poll, 60% of the respondents wanted them to stay. I had naively thought that after the peace accord was signed, in 1998 everything was ‘OK’, but clearly not. We also learnt that Belfast has the most bombed hotel in Europe (40+ bombings) and at the peak there were more security forces here than there are currently in the Afghanistan province of Helmand.
Despite that – it is now one of the safest cities in Europe, and is now in top 10 city destinations for people in the UK. And it is lovely. You can really see the effort that is being made to turn Belfast into a tourist destination and the money that is being poured into certain parts of the city. It's strange to be somewhere that has only really had a tourist industry for 5 years or so.
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| The observation platform in the mall. After talking to yet another stranger about the rugby we figured we needed to keep up to date with NZ's games! |
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| A view of the Harlem and Wolff cranes Samson and Goliath from the observation dome - not the best picture but it does show how massive they are. |
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| ...and the view down. |
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| This is the new Titanic information centre - looks very cool but not quite finished yet, so we couldn't go in. |
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| The dry dock where Titanic was constructed, it's sister ship Olympia was built in an adjacent dry dock at the same time. It's over 900 feet long. |
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| I reckon if you manage to get a car into the dry dock you deserve a prize. |
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| One of the murals in the Shankill Road area in South Belfast. They are starting to paint over some of the paramilitary ones with some less terrifying images, but there are plenty still around. |
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| This is all still very much in people's minds - those wreaths are fresh, and a massive trial (retrial?) started the day we got to Belfast. |
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| The 'peace wall' - to get a sense of how tall it is - that is a truck parked up ahead. |
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| One of the sets of gates dividing the interface areas, they are shut at 7:30pm and in the weekends. |
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| A church...I can't remember which one. |
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| Us in front of the Town Hall. Taken by another random group of people who came up to talk to us! |
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| The Town Hall, no Aotea Centre, but I suppose it's OK. |
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| The local Uni. |
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| The Botanical Gardens. |
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| A very, very ornate pub - now owned and run by the National Trust. It is lucky to be here at all, as it is directly opposite the most bombed hotel in Europe. |
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| A very Irish moment - these two guys are busy climbing through tennis rackets. |
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| Belfasts' oldest pub. There are tons of little alleyways in Belfast and down every one there is a cute pub. These places have a great atmosphere with people standing in the street outside to chat. |
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| Every single thing on the walls or ceiling is an ad for Guinness. |
The Northern Irish are amazingly friendly (even the bus drivers!), to the point where it takes ages to actually get anything done. At every pub we stopped at a random stranger would come over to chat to us. They also do sound just like Father Ted – I particularly like the pronunciation of ‘Film’ as two syllables……Fil-im. We are having real trouble understanding people though – and vice versa, Jane asked for a bottle of water at a pub and got a bottle of wine. Maybe no one had asked for water before.
Our last day was spent in the George Street Markets, which was heaps of fun – a real mix of stuff including very good food. We then went across the road to the ‘Taste of Northern Ireland Festival” and even though it was being put on by a supermarket chain it was very entertaining. Lots of small bits of food on toothpicks and enough free samples of booze to make us very happy.
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| The George Street markets. |
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| 4 sausages, and 6 bits of bacon inna bun. |
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| Crab claws fried in garlic and butter. |
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| Sampling Guinness! The poor guy in the wig got to "hold" a Guinness every time he had his photo taken with someone but wasn't allowed to drink any! |
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| Our souvenir- it's a fridge magnet! |
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| This was really funny - this guy is a very well known Irish celebrity chef, and he is currently making a hash of frying sausages and making mashed potatoe. In this photo he is vainly trying to re-attach his microphone. |
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| St Anne's Cathedral with the biggest Celtic Cross in Ireland. |
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| Albert Memorial Clock Tower. Apparently it's on a lean! |
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| On our bus ride home we were held up by a marching band. Apparently it was the last day of marching season. |
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| Freak of the Week - this guy is sending a text message while hula hooping. |
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