Northern Ireland – falling
back in love with it?
Having arrived pretty early on Friday morning, we had some
time to explore the town of Bangor and get some exercise too. The welcome into the marina was wonderful, as
alluded to in the last post. Calling them up, the man patiently explained
exactly where to berth, even down to the colour of the caps on the post on
pontoon H. Awesome service.
We reversed into the berth rather neatly although we say it
ourselves (the Nordhavn 47 only has a walkway one side so we try to berth
starboard side to. Makes getting off so much easier.) Before we had even tied
up, two locals who were en route to their boat had started chatting. It really
reminded the Captain of his Northern Ireland experiences when covering the area
for BMW. Within a few minutes, we knew about them, the best places to walk,
eat, see and of course that he was a speed / motorcycle freak.(Remember that
most NI people are petrolheads, hence the
captain felt so at home here.) Another 2
minutes and we had heard about the man’s bike exploits and history too.
After finally getting the boat moored properly we hit the
marina office. The lady booked us in,
handed over a mound of useful paperwork, explained where the interesting bits
of the town were on the map she provided, learned that we planned to go into
Belfast and so gave us a train timetable and advice on where to alight for what
and what to see there too. Then came the “previous visitors have liked x and y
in Belfast, if you go anywhere and like it, please let me know so I can pass it
on to future visitors too”. Anything else we needed? Sure it was a nice day and
please enjoy the town and marina facilities and and…
It was a flashback to the many NI visits in 1986-8. People
who like talking, love sharing their info and views and generally have time for
such things too. So unlike much of southern England and so refreshing.
Phil, the previously mentioned friend who lived in NI and is
currently the Nordhavn Europe man described the town of Bangor as “past it’s
best”. Lovely phrase. We thought that compared to Holyhead it was fine! At
least the main street is buzzing with people and alive.
The walk from Bangor towards Holywood along the waterside
was great. Owing to the temperature and sun, it felt like a Canary Islands
coastal promenade somehow:
On Saturday we took the train to Belfast and explored the
old dock and shipbuilding area (now known as the Titanic quarter – thank you Mr
DiCaprio for saving the local tourist industry!) We really don't get the whole Titanic thing but it seems that many others do so here is the new Titanic visitor
centre – rather posh:
Restored and in dry dock - the SS
Nomadic, the tender that was used to ferry passengers out to the White Star
liners from Cherbourg. She took the first and second class people out to the Titanic
for that ill-fated voyage. As you can see, they also had a better tender than
us (see the Guernsey post re the Barclay brothers for photographic evidence…):
An old Gaffer event was on – no, not boring people of our
age pretending to be important. Actually it was lots of gaff rigged sailing
boats that were en route around the UK to raise money for charity:
Walking the river, we bumped in to the Belfast version of
the Oxford / Cambridge boat race. Not quite as many spectators but all very
serious stuff:
When the Captain was a regular work visitor, there was still
a “Royal Ulster Constabulary”, soldiers on the streets in armoured Land Rovers
and lots of checkpoints. He was booked into the Europa hotel twice but only
stayed once. That was because it got blown up a few days before his planned
second visit. Famous as the most bombed hotel in Europe with 28 bomb attacks during “The Troubles” it was great to see it with a complete façade, no big security fence,
checkpoint etc:
That goes for the whole of Belfast where it is clear a lot
of regeneration cash has been spent. So nice to be back in the city and free to
walk around and enjoy the lovely buildings and ambience. City Hall is a good
example:
Finally, one of the iconic Belfast sights – Samson and
Goliath, the two huge yellow cranes at
Harland and Wolff the shipbuilding yard. They were always impressive when you
flew into the old harbour airport (now the “George Best City airport” of course)
and you saw them above you!
The open question – why was the railway station at Helens
Bay ( a pretty small place!) crawling with police as we passed through on the
way to Belfast and again on the way back many hours later? Any ideas?
The bad news was that on our return we found an inebriated Patrick
sitting in the aft cockpit in the sun. This
is bad news on so many counts:
- Can social services take him away from us for such poor
parenting?
-He has consumed some of our wine stock that has to be
lugged back from the shops by the trolley shopper adverse captain.
- being inebriated in the aft cockpit is the crew’s job.
Overall Belfast was a great place to visit. Might well go
back soon if the weather “blows up”.
