Wednesday, September 10, 2003 (Belfast – Northern Ireland)
Never pass a cow by without whipping out the
camera. Polishing off the Star Trek DVDs. Finding a campsite is nothing compared
to leaving one. Some very fine museums in this land. Still needing some repairs.
A supermarket car park is often the last resort.
Day 182. The photogenic morning mist together
with a nearby field full of cows was too much for Sandy to resist this morning
and she was soon out and about with the camera. She seems to have some kind of
fetish when it comes to photographing
cows.
It was a slow start to the day
with yet another pancake breakfast. The slow pace gave us a chance to watch the
very last episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9. Amazingly, we’ve now watched
four complete twenty-six episode series in less that three weeks time. What will
we do with our time in the evenings now that there is no more Star Trek to watch
on the box!?
Any activities that we
were going to get up to today would almost certainly have to be the indoor kind.
We are still heading in the general direction of Belfast to get the exhaust
repaired and we would be passing through Lisburn. The tourist information lady
from yesterday was quite insistent that we not miss the tractor and linen museum
in Lisburn (although I had my doubts about the unlikely combination) so we
headed in that direction.
Each time
we depart a campsite we are faced with the same dilemma. Which way do we turn
after leaving the main gate? Campsites are invariably located in out of the way
places that you can only reach by travelling down several, winding, country
lanes. As such, we are always disoriented in the morning with regards to where
we are on the map. Most of the time, the roads that we travelled along to get to
the campsite are too small to show up on our maps. This has been something that
has been a constant source of irritation for us throughout the British Isles and
Ireland. The maps with the most detail are not practical for travelling longer
distances and the maps with the less detail don’t represent many of the
roads that we traverse. I don’t know why campsite owners can’t put a
simple sign at the entrance to assist departing customers.
We followed the signs to the museum
in Lisburn and eventually found a nice place to park. The museum chronicles two
separate and distinct industries: the Fergusson Tractor company and the Irish
Linen industry. The tractor section of the museum was interesting enough but the
Linen industry section was done particularly well. With audiovisual
presentations, interactive displays nicely laid out in several rooms and across
multiple floors and even some working looms manned by real people, the overall
experience was at least as good as that of King John’s Castle in
Limerick.
After the fine museum,
shopping and the procurement of some local currency was in order, but not
necessarily in that order. Quite surprisingly, to me at least, the bank notes
here in Northern Ireland are different to those in England. The currency is
still Pounds Sterling but the pictures on the banks notes are different here. I
must remember to retain one of each for my growing collection of bank notes and
coins from around the world.
By now,
the clock was starting to yell at me a bit and we needed to get moving if we
were going to get the exhaust fitted today. Belfast was just a few kilometres
away but the rush hour traffic added significantly to the time it took us to
make it to the Kwikfit garage. The somewhat dubious directions that I was given
by one of the Kwikfit staff also added significantly to the driving time. When
we got there, there was both good news and bad waiting for us. The good news was
that they had the part ready to be installed. The bad news was that the brick
was too high to get through the door and so they couldn’t fit it. Another
Kwikfit garage across town would be able to fit the brick in but it was now to
late for us and the part to make it to the other location before closing time.
We would have to return in the morning, much to Sandy’s
distain.
Not feeling particularly
comfortable about finding a place to park for the night inside the city, we set
off in search of what appeared to be a nearby campsite. Unable to locate it, we
stopped to ask for directions and a very nice woman at a local video rental
store was ready to oblige. She even offered to let us park outside her house
with an extension cord hooking us up to her household electric supply. I
don’t know if her generosity and friendliness was because she is also a
campervan owner or simply a Belfast
resident.
As it turned out, the
campsite that we were looking for was actually just a Boy Scout campsite but the
friendly woman did point us towards another, nearby campsite, which was next to
the Belfast Ice Bowl ice skating rink and leisure centre. It was still
relatively early, so we decided to go and see if there was anything at the
leisure centre that might occupy us for a while. We spent an hour or so there
playing air hockey and pool.
Since we
weren’t in need of electricity or any of the usual services of a campsite,
the £16 per night charge for the nearby campsite seemed a bit of a waste of
time. In the meantime, we had travelled sufficiently far enough out of the city
centre for a secluded spot to suffice for the night. It wasn’t long before
we found a supermarket where we could park in an out of the way location and so
here we are.
After we get the exhaust
problem rectified tomorrow, we might be able to finally go into Belfast city
centre to see what we can see.
Posted: Wed - September 10, 2003 at 01:22 PM