Wednesday, 1 October 2014

The Emerald Isle

The ferry ride across the Irish Sea from Troon to Larne was flat, foggy and uneventful. The logistics of loading the cars was quite a process and quite different to our Canadian experience where we just drove on. As this is a "high speed" cat type ferry, they load the cars and vans etc at all sorts of jaunty angles and very tightly.....with rubber chocks under the wheels.

Headed along the North coast taking in the little villages and ports. The countryside is green and lush with rolling hills down to the sea and sheep and cattle grazing in the stone walled paddocks.

Had coffee and scones in a quaint little fishing village called Glenough and then headed along the scenic coast road.

We visited some famous places along the coast, the Giant's Causeway, a heritage listed site where our National Trust memberships came in handy,

and the rope bridge of Carrick-a-rede where they have a rope bridge the fishermen used to put over to an lsland in the summer time to lower their boats from a wooden crane tucked into the cliffs.


The weather has been great....very unusual we are constantly told, and the scenery rugged and beautiful.

We can't get over how soft and lush the grass is and how the trees actually meet over the road to create a sort of tunnel, and they have a man on a tractor with a special huge motorised hedge trimmer to keep them all neat and tidy.....I like it.

Anyway, the North of Ireland has been great, we're looking forward now to the south and following up the ancestor trail. It's been 197 years since a Best from this branch of the family has returned to our roots in Kinnegad and Cork.
And they thought they were rid of us!

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