Scotland
Thursday 30th October 2014 – Titanic Belfast & Dublin
Today was more of a travel day and not too adventurous, I only took photos on my iPhone this day so I apologise for the quality of the photos but it gives you the idea for the day.
It was an early morning and a race to catch the ferry. We had to skip our scheduled rest stop as David was worried we were going to miss the ferry. We raced past some interesting scenery seeing some more cattle, sheep (a lot of sheep painted to say they have been dipped or that they belong to a certain farmer), donkeys, tower ruins and an old abbey. We even saw black-faced sheep that had wool that was more yellow in colour than white (most sheep in Scotland and Ireland are meat sheep and the few that are used for their wool often have their wool sent to India to be made into carpets). We went past more wind farms and I remembered that Gordon (our Scottish tour guide) had mentioned that the wind farms had been so successful in Scotland that they had to upgrade all of the powerlines. The wind farms were producing more energy than Scotland needed and they needed to upgrade the powerlines so they could put more energy back into the grid (well done Scotland). Through Ayrshire we travelled and then along the coast. David soon informed us that we had reached the Irish Sea which would have currently been about ten degrees. He said “If Joseph was to go swimming in there he would soon come back Josephine.” 😉
On the bus again
Driving along the coast
“Whit’s Yer Hurry?” We have to catch the ferry!
As we drove past the sign “Whit’s Yer Hurry?” I realised the Scots clearly have a laid back attitude similar to the Bavarians in Germany. However sadly we were in quite a hurry to catch that ferry and couldn’t take our time to sight-see. We also passed a lot of stone-wall fences that seemed to be built around a barbed-wire fence (not sure if this is done for look or strength) and some fields where they are entirely clear except for the fence-lines which still had a lot of trees growing along them. We try and clear trees and especially wattle from our fence lines as they grow up and through the fence and weaken or break the fence. Therefore I am not sure if these trees don’t grow any taller and so they are safe to stay or if the farmer just hadn’t gotten around to clearing them away again yet.
Stone wall fences
Irish Sea
Uncleared fence-lines
We drove the bus onto the ferry and departed only ten minutes after we drove on, so luckily we didn’t stop or we would have missed it! We got off and were allowed to explore the ferry which had many levels and included a cinema and gaming room for children, a casino, a spa retreat area, a trucker’s bar, a cafe, a restaurant and a shop. We had a lovely meal on the ship and it is the first time I have had to use my motion sickness tablets as the ferry may have been large but you could really feel the unevenness and it was hard to walk around and the pressure was giving me quite a headache. I would have much preferred to curl up and sleep on the ferry like many of the other passengers but Mary, Bill and I continued to explore the ship and even the shop (which wasn’t solely Irish and Scottish based products but had quite a collection of American products such as “Yankee candles”, why you would want to buy candles from America when going from Scotland to Ireland I do not know). After quite a lengthy stint on the ship (at least an hour and a half from memory) we landed in Belfast.
Our ferry
View from the ferry
We visited Titanic Belfast and learned about the famous liner which was built in the adjacent docks. Yes that’s right the Titanic was built by the Irish….and sunk my an Englishman (yes indeed the Irish do love to tell it that way). They have the SOS messages and communication from the Titanic and other ships there for you to read, the chairs outside of the building spell out the SOS the Titanic sent in Morse code and on the floor throughout the building and outside of it is a compass and one of the biggest maps of the Northern Hemisphere in the world. We also learned about some of the working conditions of the ship builders. For instance they take you up to the top of the building (the third floor) to look down and then tell you the workers were at a level that was 3 times that (9 levels high) without any harnesses or safety equipment. They were only given fifteen minutes for lunch breaks and if they were late they had their pay docked. So as you can imagine this didn’t leave much time to go to the toilet and so they had to have a toilet bucket up there with them that was brought down and emptied each day in preparation to take it up again the next day. The exhibit also showed what some of the rooms on the Titanic would have looked like and the people and their life histories of who were on the Titanic (the different classes and even the workers who worked in the different classed sections of the Titanic).
Titanic Belfast (in the shape of a ship)
Titanic being built
Titanic
Time clock
Workers worked at 3 times this height with no safety equipment
One side of the Titanic
Inside one of the rooms of the Titanic
Inside one of the rooms of the Titanic
Another ferry at the docks
There was a lot to see and even a ride, but we opted to not go on the ride and tried to skim through as we didn’t have too much time before the bus was leaving and I had also run out of credit on my English phone (which is my internet source and therefore important for staying connected to my family and friends in the different places of the world). So we raced through and then Mary and I asked someone where we could buy phone credit and found the Irish man to be just as helpful as everyone in Scotland had been and within 10 minutes we had a nice fresh walk, got the phone credit put on and were the first ones on the bus ten minutes early. It was quite lovely to go for that walk after being on the bus, a ferry, and then in a large building all morning and even better as it wasn’t raining! I wouldn’t call it a clear day as there always seems to be some kind of cloud in the sky in this part of the world but it was a nice dry day for the moment.
We then drove south to Dublin crossing from Northern Ireland (UK) into the Irish Republic (EU) with the only difference really being the lines on some of the roads went from white to yellow. David was now in his element being back on his home turf and with some of the strange questions he was getting from one of the other tour group members he replied “You have a one-track mind…and even that’s derailed!” He even helped us spot the local wildlife and we saw a MAMIL in its habitat. For those of you unsure a MAMIL is a Middle-Aged Man In Lycra (middle-aged men who wear tight lycra clothing, similar to professionals, while cycling through streets on bicycles). After dark we finally checked into our hotel in Dublin which looked very much like a palace and we wondered how this tour continued to top the accommodation each and every time. It was lovely to get back to the hotel room as in it was the largest bed I have ever seen and I was even more impressed with the tour that even though I was travelling by myself and there was a group of ladies travelling in three I had my own room throughout the whole trip. We were then left to our own devices for dinner and Bill, Mary and I had a lovely dinner at a chicken place on the Bay (although it was a little bit of a cold wet walk on the way back we were still enjoying ourselves as we were now officially in Ireland!).
On the bus to the hotel
Largest hotel bed all to myself
Coll's Travels 