Belfast

Belfast is a city we’ve visited before. I first visited in the late 1980’s on a choir tour, when a strong military  presence was evident, the tension high, but the welcome was warm. More recently I’d visited for work, fortunate enough to meet fabulous people, host conferences and events in some of the famous tourist attractions and take a little time to explore with Ian who occasionally joined me. We’d both enjoyed our time here, but knew there was plenty more we wanted to do, so decided to stay for a few days before setting off to explore further.

The docks are so central in Belfast, within 20 minutes we’d arrived at our council run camping park, on the edge of the Lough. A perfect base to get into the city and further afield.  

Heading into the city we met a fabulous American lady at the bus stop, she was in Belfast with her daughter who was just starting university. She lives in Cairo and has spent her life teaching around the world. A fascinating person who inspired us to consider visiting Egypt soon (it’s been on the list for a while).

Having done many of the usual tourist attractions, we headed out to Crumin Road Goal. It’s a formidable building that housed prisoners from1845 until 1996. Most recently known for housing  prisoners through the Troubles, its history is chilling. Women, children, lunatics, political prisoners, and hangings, you hear about them all as you visit.

From the tunnel where prisoners were walked from the jail to the courthouse, to the central area where the Wings connected (based on Pentonville Prison).

You learn about the children held here, how things changed over time. The Suffragettes, the medical facilities and the political prisoners. There are some interesting interviews with recent prisoners held during the Troubles (from each side) who now work towards ensuring lasting peace together, but were most definitely the strongest of opponents when inmates. When the prison opened it held 106 prisoners. In the 1970’s the overcrowding became so acute that the International Red Cross were allowed to inspect the  prison, finding 864 prisoners, in a jail built for 475. 

The whole place certainly has an atmosphere, it may have been me, but standing in the execution chamber where Thomas Pierrepoint acted as the gaol's most regular hangman was extraordinary. The last execution took place in 1961. It feels so recent, and yet so alien. Somewhere certainly worth a visit, but not one to do if looking for an uplifting experience.

To lighten the mood, we headed back into town, had a wander around the murals we passed and headed for dinner at The Dirty Onion. Expensive, but delicious!

The city has certainly changed even since we last visited about 8 years ago, it feels lighter, less of an undercurrent, in fact, I’d say no undercurrent was felt in the city. Hopefully a sign of continuing peace as the younger generation who haven’t lived through the troubles live their lives without division. 

It was good to get back to our campsite, admire the view and prepare to travel the Causeway Coastal route. 

Island to Ireland

 * this blog was written before we’d made the decisions shared in our previous blog.

Agy is on the move again! Leaving our house the rain started to fall, but arriving at the ferry port the sun came out and the water turned blue. It’s sure to be a trip of more rain than we would like, but a journey we have been looking forward to for a long time.

As we sailed away, I noticed a very familiar boat that just looked out of place. I couldn’t work out why until I saw the name. The City of Westminster dredger was our ‘local boat’ when we lived in London. Ian used to be able to recognise her from the sound of her engines alone as she passed by our house; and here she was crossing our path once again as we left our new home on the island. It might not seem much to you, but to me, it was a positive sign of happy days past and future. 

As we often do when  we travel to the mainland, we spent a few days with family, sadly forgetting to take photos again, except for dad who we took out shopping and for a coffee. For those who know him, he’s doing OK, but is definitely not in as good health as he has been.

As we left family, our journey took us north, passing Paddington on the way (we still aren’t sure why he was there!) towards The Wirral. Stopping overnight at a campsite with fabulous views, but very tired facilities, we were up early heading to Liverpool docks to await our ferry To Belfast.

We do love a ferry, but have never sailed with Stena Line before, so didn’t really know what to expect, but we certainly weren't disappointed! We’d booked a cabin, so we could have a rest and a shower (a great shower means a lot when travelling). What a cabin it was! Spacious, light, snacks and TV. A very comfy bed too, which we made good use of catching up on the sleep we’d missed due to the crack of dawn start.

A calm crossing felt like a gift as much of the UK was battered by storms. A good omen for our Irish adventure?  

A beginning and an end

 

Having written this trip's first blog a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t bring myself to post it. This trip is not what we expected it to be, and for the first time I’m going to share the end of the story now, then return to the trip in future blogs.

By the time you read this we will be home, but Agy won’t be. In fact Agy isn’t coming home. We hope she will soon be off having more adventures, but it won’t be with us.

We never imagined we’d be sharing this news, but we are actually feeling very happy. As you know, Agy is more than a van to us, we love her, she’s taken us to places we never imagined and she feels like family. I think that’s what made this harder. When we bought her, I was working, we lived in central London, she was our only transport and our longest trip was a fortnight.

Now, we aren’t working, we certainly don’t live in central London and most trips are a minimum of 6 weeks, at times we’ve travelled or lived in her for 3-4 months. We also have Lucy (our little car).

I think we have both been in denial for a while, but on this trip we had a conversation that has changed our lives. Agy, however fabulous, isn't right for us now. She is utterly brilliant and has enhanced our lives, but it is time to move on.    

As we rattled along the Irish roads (they really did make her rattle, we thought our Isle of Wight roads were bad.. But.. oomph, these were something else!), struggling to find places to stay as campsites were closing for the season we came to the hard realisation this wasn’t working. Somehow it all came together, Ireland (for us) wasn’t working and Agy had some flaws we’ve been trying to ignore for a while because it felt unthinkable. Me needing Ian to get up if I need a wee in the night is not ideal, as we get older scrambling up into her high bed will get harder, she’s quite small for long trips, and the fridge is tiny.

One of the best things about travelling in a van, is that you can choose what you do, where you go and how you travel. We’d had some time in Ireland, seen some beautiful scenery, visited interesting places, but we were ready to head home, so we changed our ferry booking and set off for home. 

We had the most beautiful sailing, a calm sea and stunning sunset arriving back in Birkenhead early evening about a week ago (when you read this). During the sailing we continued our conversation and did a lot of research, and decided we’d stop off and look at some potential options for new vans on the way home. We felt terribly disloyal discussing this in Agy, so somehow it was easier on the ferry in a cabin where she couldn’t hear us.

I had looked for somewhere we could stay overnight as there was no way we could get home that night. We’ve occasionally stayed at pubs and restaurants, so I decided to look for one about 1-2 hrs away from the ferry port and found one not far from Stoke on Trent, just off our route home.

Arriving just before they closed, the staff were so welcoming, agreed we could stay over, sorted our drinks, served a great meal and gave us a safe place to sleep before heading off towards home the next day. We did however spot a motorhome sales company only 15 minutes away from where we were staying that night, and they had some of the vans we thought we might be interested in, so of course we stopped off, with no intention of doing anything other than having a look.

It turns out, this  trip was a little more expensive than anticipated! We found the van that feels perfect for our next stage of travel and life, the price was right and the team great. So here we are staying up north on a lovely little site with amazing views (Agy is tucked behind the hedge) awaiting our new travel buddy to be ready, registered and the reddies to be transferred.

It’s both exciting and totally nerve wracking (what if something happened to Agy in the next few days? Every driver seems a threat on the road!). We really had no plan for this to happen when we left home, but it feels right.

We are due to pick up our new van in a couple of days, as I write (she doesn’t have a name yet, but she will), we are trying to pack up all we have in Agy to make the transfer as easy as possible, and will set off for home once the deed is done. We know when our first trip will be, as we had planned to visit good friends up north, celebrate a big birthday with them, and are going to some very special friends wedding - so we will do that, it will just be a new trip in our new van instead of on our way home from Ireland in Agy.   

So here is our end, and beginning…. I’ll post trip blogs soon, but we needed to share this news first. It wouldn’t feel right not to share such a huge change for weeks. We’re sorry if we have been quiet or been a bit cryptic talking to some of you. I suddenly became the most superstitious person ever and felt huge anxiety over telling anyone anything until the handover was complete and we were safely on our way home with our new purchase.

I think you’ll see the difference and how we’ve kept the best of Agy’s features, but have enhanced those we were beginning to struggle with.