Northern Ireland

Two weeks ago, I spent Sunday night at Chris’s flat in Greenwich. We woke up at 4am, drove a rental car I had to Heathrow, returned it and hopped a 7am flight to Northern Ireland. There, we met up with John for a week of camping and boating.

John had taken his car across to Northern Ireland on the ferry several days earlier with our camping gear, so he met us with that and we headed off into the wilderness.

Our first two nights were at a campsite near a National Trust historical mansion 40 miles or so south of Belfast. We set up camp, did some hiking and explored the area a bit.

We started the trip eating well and continued throughout… our first night’s dinner consisted of chicken fajitas, rice, refried beans and all the fixings, prepared on a single burner camp stove. We subsequently successfully did eggs and bacon for breakfast with that stove, before moving our cooking to a boat.

On our third day, we drove across to the west of Northern Ireland to pick up a 22’ boat with a small diesel motor, to go exploring the locks and rivers throughout the area. We moored it near an Asda (Walmart’s UK brand) in the nearest town and picked up food for the remainder of the week.

It was a great time to just catch up with two friends without any computers, phones or other distractions, out on the open water. Each of the three nights we had the boat, we moored at public docks on the rivers, with no other people within sight anywhere.

One day, we moored at a four-star hotel for a quick 9-hole round of golf. It was a great time, but we had a bit of a challenge with the “quick” part of the round… I’d been on a golf course maybe twice in my life and to a driving range only a few more times. Chris had taken lessons at a driving range. John had never before driven a golf ball on the range, a course or otherwise. Between the three of us, we had respectable scores… had it been an 18-hole course.

To continue the food thread here, we prepared steaks, sausages and barbecue ribs on disposable charcoal grills. We had pancakes for breakfast, cooked in the galley. We had apple pie, cheeses, and plenty of tasty beverages to last us for the three nights on the water.

After a quick drive to the rope bridge up near Giants Causeway along the northern coast of Northern Ireland, we spent the last day in Belfast and returned back to the UK late on Sunday.

A few of my photos from the week are here.