Tuesday, September 9, 2003 (Anahilt – Northern Ireland)
An engineer in need is a friend indeed. Crossing
over into the
North. The Legonanny Dolmen prehistoric burial
structure. How long does it take to make your way all the way to here? The
possibility of a film crew following us around the world?
Day 181. We wanted to be awake early this
morning to make sure we would be first in line to get he attentions of an
engineer to check out our engine problems. As it happened, there was more than
enough activity in the garage at around eight o’clock to wake us up. The
foreman came in shortly before nine and pretty much immediately put someone to
work on the brick. I had no idea what the problem was going to be but I just
knew it was going to be expensive. Finding replacement parts for a twenty four
year old vehicle might also be a problem. After about thirty minutes of waiting,
the foreman came back with good news. A minor adjustment to the ignition points
was all that was needed to cure the ailing engine. No spare parts were needed at
all. The brick was once again running smoothly. The exhaust, on the other hand,
was another problem. As I had feared, a backfire had ruptured the exhaust but
there was no replacement part in stock. In fact, the foreman told me that he had
never even seen the part before. I did some phoning around and eventually found
a Kwikfit exhaust centre in Belfast that would be able to have the part within a
day. Since we were heading in that general direction anyway, this was also good
news. The only thing we needed to do was to stop at another Kwikfit exhaust
centre in Dundalk to have them verify the correct part number and to phone that
information through. Dundalk is also on the way to Belfast and so a brief stop
there was also not a problem.
Shortly
after leaving Dundalk, we left the Republic of Ireland also and crossed over
into Northern Ireland. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Northern Ireland.
All through my childhood, I saw continuing and ongoing news reports regarding
‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. My own preconception of
‘the North’ was one of a place that might look torn and shattered by
decades of unrest and war. The reality was somewhat of a pleasant surprise.
Northern Ireland is a very green and pretty place and not too dissimilar from
the republic in many ways. The only evidence that we’ve come across so far
of the violent history of this section of the island has been the odd political
slogan scribbled on bridge overpasses and road signs. Even so, the ‘Brits
go home’ slogan is still a little unnerving.
One difference between the South and
the North that was almost immediately evident was the cost of fuel. Almost the
same figures in sterling pence per litre as in Euros cents per litre in the
South are posted at the filling stations. This makes fuel something like fifty
percent more expensive here. At least my UK mobile phone would now work without
the nuisance of having to be billed for International calls each
time.
Since all the literature and
brochures that we have on-board are for the South, we had little idea of what we
were going to do or where we were going to go in Northern Ireland so we stopped
at the first place that had a tourist information office to collect some
information on what not to miss. The eager young lady behind the counter was
pleased to give us a plethora of options with how to spend the few days that we
have remaining before we set off for Scotland and we now have a rough plan of
which direction we will be taking. The café located in the same building
served more than adequate for
lunch.
This part of the country is
apparently pretty rich in pre-historic monuments and so it seemed appropriate
that we made one of these our first port of call after lunch. A megalithic
burial structure composed of three, huge, upright stones of differing heights
and topped off with an even larger slab to form a primitive roof was just a few
kilometres from the tourist information office. Our capacity for getting lost
even with a dozen or more different maps of the country at our disposal never
ceases to amaze me but we eventually found the site and marvelled at the
structure accordingly.
After leaving
the burial structure, we promptly got lost again and spent the next thirty
minutes or so following what we thought was the route to our next destination,
but somehow managed to wind up just a few hundred yards from where we started.
All this driving around raised the stress levels a bit so I decided that we had
had enough for the day and we drove to the nearest campsite – getting
lost, twice, in the process.
Shortly
after we arrived at the campsite, I received an unexpected phone call from the
BBC. Whilst on the Internet the other day, I read something about the BBC
wanting to hear from people who are leaving their former lives behind to go
travelling around the world. They are apparently in the process of producing a
documentary on the subject with the aim of sending a TV camera crew to follow
people as they travel around the world. There was an e-mail address for anyone
interested so I wrote in with our story and thought nothing more of it but it
seemed that someone on the other end took an interest and wanted to follow up.
After a brief chat with one of the documentary producers, it seemed that our
situation did not lend itself to their needs. They wanted to follow the process
from start to finish and we are already in the middle having already sold our
house and everything else and having already travelled some. The idea was nice
while it lasted but I guess we’ll have to settle with watching the program
as opposed to being part of it.
Posted: Tue - September 9, 2003 at 01:21 PM