September 12, 2013
The B&B we stayed in last night
We drove to Cushendall, Northern
Ireland, located about 50 miles northeast of Belfast today. The B&B we selected was located on a high
hill looking out on the sea with vast bluffs and pastures between us and the
water. The decision to go to Northern
Ireland was made a few weeks before I left, so I did not have time for much
research. We stopped at a small town in
the Republic (South Ireland) for coffee and two gentlemen there said crossing
the border wasn’t a problem, but be careful where we went, and parked, in
Belfast. It was pretty clear to us that
they were still “fighting” the “Troubles” that ended during the last decade. Crossing the border, the only way we knew we
were crossing was a small sign indicating the border and an information sign
saying they use miles and mph for driving.
We continued on and, although I had not planned to drive in Belfast at
all, we ended up in downtown Belfast at rush hour enroute to Cushendall. (Definitely not a good idea!) It was dark when we finally arrived at the
B&B.
Driving along the coastline
during the early part of the drive was in reduced visibility and off-and-on
rain. I was still trying to figure out
all the knobs and handles in the car plus getting used to driving on the left
side of the road.
Driving in the rain in a typical city street
They drive very fast
here and speed limits on roads we took were about 20-30 mph faster (or more)
than what we would see in the U.S.—even in the West! For instance a very narrow (normal) roadway
with NO shoulders would have a speed limit of 60 mph—it would be 30-45 in the
States. This was true in both
countries. Additionally, we saw people
stopped at various locations along roads.
They didn’t pull off—they just stopped in the middle of the lane and, in
one case, he was facing us on a hill in our lane! We didn’t do any stopping for sightseeing
today—the one place we planned to stop was closed by the time we arrived.
We rented a GPS for the trip and
it was a good move. Fortunately, by the
time we arrived in Belfast, Deb had pretty well figured it out. However, we drove in more than one circle to
get to a street going in the direction we wanted to go. I told the folks about a saying we used in
Scotland in 2003: “Flexibility, not senility.” It is evident I will be thinking those words a
lot as I drive these roads.
We had a wonderful dinner
tonight; mine was smoked haddock topped with cod.
FAST FACTS: Northern Ireland (Ulster) is part of
the United Kingdom while Southern Ireland (The Republic of Ireland) is independent.
Belief systems: Ireland today is 88% Roman Catholic, 3%
Church of Ireland, 2% Unspecified, 4% None.
Although the Catholic faith is in the majority, it no longer wields the
weight in people’s daily lives that it used to.
