Hi all
This summer we went to Northern Ireland for the first time, and it was great! Definitely a place to go back to. We had fantastic weather for the first week and pretty good weather for the second week, apart from a couple of foggy / hazy days.
Read on to find out what we did, here's a link to the full photo album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105628058638963280461/6297797908593566097
Enjoy! :)
Siobhan xx
Sunday, 19 June 2016
Friday 27th May
We began our holiday by going to Armathwaite to the Fox and
Pheasant which we have enjoyed staying at a number of times when we travel up
north, particularly to Scotland. The day was bright and sunny, the traffic was
quite light and we made good time - we stopped off at Aysgarth Falls and Brougham Castle on the way
and had lunch there before continuing our route to the Inn. Once checked in we ate in the pub restaurant
and enjoyed a 'Traditional Fish Supper' which was basically a slightly swankier
version of fish and chips. Very simple, but really enjoyable afteray one the
road!Saturday 28th May
Another bright and sunny morning, we left the Fox and
Pheasant after breakfast (a light one for me, and a VERY full English Breakfast
for Mathew!), and we made our way to Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway making
good time for the lunch time ferry crossing to Larne, just outside and north of
Belfast. We decided to buy lunch on the way and as we arrived with time to
spare, we ate it whilst waiting. This is the only ferry terminal where we have
had an announcement to say when boarding would start, a 'have a great trip'
from the guy waving the vehicles onto the boat, AND a further announcement on
the boat to say that they had a fully booked ferry crossing! I started of course with a hot chocolate from
the on board Starbucks, and the crossing itself was really calm.
Once in Northern Ireland, we made our way to the Causeway
Coast straight away, the weather still bright and sunny. The scenery on the way was quite spectacular,
I imagine the great weather helped! The
road took us along the edges of the Glens of Antrim and Antrim Hills so the
landscape loomed above us on one side as we looked out to sea on the other.
We soon arrived at our cottage which was literally up the
road from the Giant's Causeway. Here we would be staying for our first week in
Northern Ireland.
Sunday 29th May
We woke up early, it was so bright outside! Good job I brought my eyemask with me! Outside was yet another bright and sunny day
but the breeze was a cool one. We
started off by going to the Giant's Causeway, where there was so much to do and
interact with in the visitors centre.
Onward we walked to the Causeway itself which is pretty impressive. Much
like the Isle of Staffa, and although its a bit smaller in size than what we
saw in Scotland, I felt that the rocks themselves were larger. It was bright
and sunny all day so there wasn't much of a hazard of slipping on the stones,
and it was fun stepping around on them because they were all different
sizes. We arrived there early in the
morning - well, I say early, I mean shortly after they opened. There weren't
many people walking around it at that time of the morning and we enjoyed
walking right to the end of it, more or less.
By the time we decided to step away from the Causeway itself and explore
the trail next to it, a pair of red shirts (wardens) had appeared, keeping
people from climbing up to the very top part because the stones were loose, and
another stationed towards the end, preventing people from walking to the very
end.
Exploring the trail next to the Causeway, we walked around
the corner past some very impressive rock formations known as "organ
pipes" which is self explanitory when you see them, and further around the
coast where we came upon the Giant's Boot which was fun to sit in. The trail took us up the cliff and around to
'The Cauldron' which was basically a large cove area and here the trail ended -
although we could see the remnants of the trail making its way around the
cliffs about half way up. It used to go all the way along the coast just like
the one along the very top of the cliff does, I imagine it would have been
quite spectacular to walk along the coastline halfway down when it was
doable. We could have made our way to
the very top of the cliff but as I had a cold and was struggling with my breathing
we decided to continue back towards the Causeway itself (plenty of time to
explore the clifftop trail later in the week) and back to the visitors centre
where I discovered a few presents for people's souvenirs, birthdays and
Christmas...!
We made our way to Dunluce Castle (dated to the 1500s) next, where we first
stopped to eat lunch before heading in.
Mathew headed down to the beach to get a different photo of the castle while I waited up top as I was feeling
quite tired at this point.
After this, we made our way back to the cottage via
"The Dark Hedges" - a tree lined avenue used in a scene of Game of
Thrones. The trees are incredibly old and gnarly, twisting their way around
over the road,and there were quite a few people taking photos when we got there
but we were able to take a few decent shots.
Monday 30th May
When we woke up this morning it was rather foggy outside -
given that we're right by the coast we presumed this was sea mist rolling
inland, and the weather app was predicting blue skies and sunshine. By the time we reached Carrickfergus, there
it was, and it was WARM!! We visited the Norman castle here which was quite fun.
After the castle we took a walk along the promenade looking
for a sculpture of three knights which we had seen on a brochure, and they
were basically at the other end of the road from where we came into
Carrickfergus. Although, we thought they would have looked better nearer to the
castle....!
We had made our lunch and brought it with us so we sat in
the harbour for lunch before continuing along the 'coastal route' which took us
past Larne where we had come into Northern Ireland, and we travelled up the
same road north until we passed the Glens of Antrim (to be explored later!)
which were featured in Game of Thrones, and a stop off at Layde Church which is a curious little hidden church in ruins, and then on to Cushenden where we found the caves which were also featured in
Game of Thrones. Onward we went the real
scenic route (coastal road) to Torr Head, and it had been bright and sunny for
the whole day. So much so we could see
the Mull of Kintyre across the water from Torr Head itself. The journey to the
viewpoint was very enjoyable as we climbed up and up, I started to wonder if
there were some walks around the top of these ridges which we could do at some
point......
After the Torr, we moved onward along the rest of the
coastal route and back to the cottage, a very enjoyable day and journey indeed,
despite my cold - although it was getting better throughout the day.
Tuesday 31st May
We started out by looking at a farmer's cottage set in
Ireland and visiting other Irish buildings of a typical countryside village
such as the Blacksmiths and a Printers and eventually we made it to a street of
shops which led to the dockyard which was laid out really cleverly - we could
'board' the ship, and on the other side we walked onto an American street with
a general store laden with all sorts of goods which the Irish migrants would
not have seen before such as squashes.
Onward we went into the American countryside where we saw typical houses
which the Irish migrants built themselves, some of them were actual buildings
transported from areas such as Pensylvania. We could tell there were some more
recent buildings which had been installed, and I'm sure there's more to
come.
A very enjoyable day, and I found it particularly fascinating to learn about individual people's stories about their move to America, and how some of them stayed and some returned to Ireland years later.
A very enjoyable day, and I found it particularly fascinating to learn about individual people's stories about their move to America, and how some of them stayed and some returned to Ireland years later.
Wednesday 1st June
The museum itself is about the history of Derry, starting
with the prehistoric era and making its way to the present day. It is a bit of
an intense experience I have to say, but that was to be expected. A very well told history of the city and an
enjoyable walk from the top of the tower with views of the city down through
another exhibition about the Spanish Armada and the discovery of one of its ships, La Trinidad Valencera, which sank off the coast of Co. Donegal in 1558 and excavated 400 years later.
After this, we walked onto the City Walls via 'The Craft
Village' which is like a little arcade set out like a small village complete
with balconies and overhead mini foot bridges, lots of little units of
individual independent craft shops selling locally handmade things. Yes, I
bought a few things for myself here and a few souvenirs!
The City Walls didn't take long to walk around, as the city
centre itself isn't that big, however they are the widest city walls which I
have ever walked on. Then it dawned on me that it's because I'm so used to
walking on Medieval city walls - these were built much later in the 16th
Century. It's a very nice walk to do,
very pleasent, and you can see the extra metal railings which were put up
opposite Bogside, and also from here you can see some of the murals there. There are murals in a number of places in and
around the city but the Bogside murals are the most well known.
After our visit to Londonderry we moved on to Downhill Demesne where we stopped to have a late lunch first before exploring the
area. It was a coastal walk which took
us past a Dovecote, a Temple, through a small glen which was very nice, and on
to a memorial before we explored the eccentric house which looks like a stately
house from the front and a castle at the back.
The eccentric owner was known to switch architects at the drop of a hat and grow
bored with projects quickly. There was no explanation about why the back ot the
building was made to look like a castle, so perhaps nobody knows why...!
Finally, we went on to Binevenagh - an Area of Outstanding
Natural Beauty which we had seen from a distance and I had said to Mathew that
I wouldn't mind standing on the top of that if there was a way. At first we weren't sure and we thought at it
was too far to be worth it on foot, especially as we were coming to the end of
the day despite it still being quite light quite late on in the day at the
moment. However, as we made our way through
the area, Mathew had a look on his iPhone and he saw a road which didn't look
too far from it. So we set off and found
it, although it was very gravelly and bumpy!
There was a view point and a small loch for fishing, and the edge of the
ridge of Binevenagh wasn't far, so we walked along the ridge for a while. The
landscape was so flat around us as we could see the Magilligan Point and Loch
Foyle before us. A very enjoyable evening indeed. And yes, we later discovered that the area
had been used for - you guessed it - Game of Thrones!Thursday 2nd June
Today we decided to do a part of the Causeway Coastal Walk,
and what a perfect day we chose! We
started at Dunseverick Castle (to be looked at later in the week) and walked
west along the causeway coast to the Giant's Causeway, stopping off at various
points along the way and took plenty of photos.We had lunch overlooking the causeway, made our way to Visitors Centre part of the path where we were ending our walk and noticed the ice cream was out - how could we resist? We both had a 'Honeycomb Cup' (Vanilla Ice Cream delightfully interrupted with honeycomb pieces, and plenty of them), before returning to the cottage for half an hour to charge my camera battery and rest our feet befor heading out again.
We then set out to Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge which is a
fairly small but suspended bridge across to a very tiny island where there is a fisherman's cottage, which is still there but not accessible. The bridge was originally erected by salmon fishermen in 1755 and is 30m above sea level. I'm
not the biggest fan of this type of bridge however it was nowhere near as bad
as Capilano in Canada which I didn't enjoy going over that much (it's
enormous!), and it was absolutely fine for me. Its not the height as much as
the swaying that I'm not a fan of! The
island was small and rocky and home to a number of bird and flower
species. The water surrounding us was
incredibly blue, it was almost as if we were in the mediterranean, and there were a number of caves and caverns which we could see below.
After a quick stop to look at Ballintoy Harbour (Game of
Thrones filming location AGAIN!), we went back to the cottage and after dinner
we decided to go out again to the Giant's Causeway to get some evening photos. It was cooler of course although it was a bit
of a shock after having been so warm during the day. There were a few people there but not too many,
not as many as there were during the day when we had been there originally. The Causeway itself is actually accessible
from the coastal walk and you can make your way to the Visitors Centre and go
through the arch next door to it to go and see it. Of course the risk you take is the danger -
there were warnings on the map about high winds causing high waves but as the
Centre was closed and there were no officials, people were free to walk all
over it where they wanted. Many go to
see the sunset, which is more or less what we did, at it was summer we didn't
want to stay out until 10:10pm but we stayed long enough to see the sun hit the
horizon by the time we had walked up the slope to the top.Friday 3rd June
Today we went to the Glens of Antrim, Glen Arif being known
as 'The Queen of the Glens of Antrim', so we set out early as we had booked a
place on a coastal walk known as 'The Gobbins' later on in the day. As we rode
in the car to the Visitors Centre for Glen Arif, I actually saw TWO red
squirrels at feeding stations along the avenue we came along which was
promising, as this area is known for its high red squirrel population. We set out on the 'Waterfall Walk' which was
quite nice, although a little steep even going down, but it did take us pretty
much to the bottom of the glen and we were rewarded with good views of a couple
of waterfalls before we made our way back up. I have to admit, I do try not to
have expectations but after the glens on the Isle of Man, I was expecting
something similar but Glen Arif is much smaller. It's nice, but I couldn't help
but compare them! I was very disappointed with the route back up to the car
park though, it offered no additional or repeat views of the glen. Don't get me wrong, I
like walking through a pretty forest as much as the next person but it became
quite monotonous for me and the increasing steepness of the climb back up
didn't make it any better - some distracting views would have been nice. Sadly,
we didn't see any more red squirrels either.
Back at the car park we took a look in the shop and bought postcards of
the Giant's Causeway which were actually much better then the ones in the shop
AT the Causeway (!), and we had lunch here before heading off to The Gobbins on
Islandmagee.
We had initially heard of The Gobbins on BBC Breakfast, it's a
Victorian cliff walk which had recently been restored, and it looked quite fun so we thought we'd check
it out. Turns out that it had only been
open since August last year, and was closed after all the repetitive storms
which we had at the beginning of 2016. We were told that the original path to
the beginning of The Gobbins had been destroyed by storm Frank, particularly by
the waves crashing against the slope.
Apparently the whole slope continuously changed shape for about 2 months
during these storms, but they soon installed a new path and opened up
again. There was still a bit of storm
damage on our route which meant that we were unable to do the last few metres
of it, so when we arrived we were each given a £2.50 voucher to spend in the
shop and cafe as compensation.
Once we had 'checked in', we met our tour guide Dawn and
were taken into a room with 12 others and shown a safety video which I have to
say was really quite funny and the best safety video I have ever seen! We were given hard hats, got into a mini bus
and were taken to the beginning of the walk.
Our guide was very knowledgeable and stopped off at various points
telling us facts about the trail, what it was like then it was first created
etc. We walked down the long slope to
the coast and donned our hats before starting the cliff walk proper. Steps had been cut into the rock and railings
were there of course - some of the original railings were still there and had
been kept in for us to see. We could
take as many photos as we liked as we were given plenty of opportunities, and
we were constantly being told to look up at the cliffs. You do tend to look down at where you're
stepping and forget to do that!
The rocks were craggy and stuck out at all angles so the
hats were essential. There were a number
of bridges along the way including a very well known cylindrical tunnel like
bridge, and we were reminded that the original bridges would have had planks of
wood used to walk on, which would have been continuously wet and increasingly
slimy and slippy as time went on. The
route was quite up and down, but it was definitely worth it because of the
views of the sea and the cliffs. Finally
we reached the end (well, temporarily the end for us due to storm damage), at
which point we were on a covered bridge looking at a cliff which was covered in
birds! Yes, the roof was there to
prevent us being pooped and swooped on, but otherwise, we had a great view of
the birds on the cliffs and of those bobbing on the water. There were Fulmars, Kittiwakes and
Razorbills, all nesting on the cliff and feeding in the water. We made our way back to the beginning of the
trail, again with plenty of time to take more photos if we wanted to, including
a short visit to the mouth of a cave. We
later learned that the man who created this crazy cliff walk was also involved
with the Glens of Antrim!
After a very physical day we were glad to get back to our
cottage.
Saturday 4th June
Today it was time to move on to our second place between
Belfast and the Mourne Mountains. We
decided to have showers first thing although the heating wasn't playing today
(of course). All week we had problems with
the hot water not being hot because we had absolutely no idea how the boiler
worked and there were no instructions.
Just when we thought we had figured it out (yesterday), we realised the
boiler needed something like 2 hours to heat the water to a reasonable
temperature. I washed my hair and
showered anyway although I regretted it almost instantly after I realised that
the lukewarm water was actually pretty damn cold so yes, you could say I had an
ice shower. Not pleasent but I saw it through!
Mathew decided to have his shower later on when we arrived at our new
place.
On our way, we stopped off at Dunseverick Castle (dated to the 1500s) which is
very tiny and in ruins, Belfast Castle which I thought was going to have large
gardens but it turns out that the garden was quite small (although very very
nice), and was in Cave Hill Country Park. Not wanting any more 'ups' right now, we called the owners of the new
place although it was a little early and they said it was all ready and they
would pop in when then got home. Turns
out that it took us just over an hour to navigate our way around Belfast to get
there and the directions given were straightforward on paper but not on the
road (naming a road by the place name it leads to is not the same as the actual
road name, and neither is saying 'first left' when it actually turns out to be
the 3rd left), but we found our way there eventually and I have to say that it
was a really nice place. An open plan
barn loft conversion, modern but quite spacious given the size, no TV (but we
had brought a DVD player and Mathew's Laptop) and no wifi but a cable
connection to the internet. So fairly off grid.
Nice!Sunday 5th June
Today we visited Castle Ward. We started walking on a trail (with several
sites used for Game of Thrones) in the grounds before having lunch, and then went
into the 18th century mansion which was by guided tour only.
It was a really good tour - we were in quite a large group which they
split up into two and we did each side of the house. The mansion is quite eccentric with one half built and decorated in Classical style which
is what the man of the house (Lord Bangor) preferred, whilst the other side was Gothic style
which is what the lady of the house (Lady Ann Bligh) preferred. It was very quirky and quite fun to go around and the tour was about the
people, how they lived in the house and what each room was for. It was quite
humerous and very enjoyable!
After some ice cream we left and made our way to Dundrum
Castle (dated to the 1170s) which is in ruins and is open access.
Not a 'blip' of a castle like Dunseverick, a little more substantial
than that!
Monday 6th June
As my brother Shaun had arrived in Northern Ireland
yesterday (this was purely a fluke that we had decided to visit the same
country on our holidays at the same time!), we thought it would be a good idea
to meet up and do a day together, also because we had many of the same things
on our list to do in the area. Shaun was
staying in Carrickfegus for about 4 days before moving on north, and given the
weather, we decided that the Titanic Museum in Belfast was a good one to go
with.
We decided to pay for the Museum and the SS Nomadic as we
thought that a guided tour wasn't really worth paying the extra for when it was
quite easy to move around yourself and there was the option to do this
too. Starting off with the 'Titanic
Experience', we began with industry in Belfast, such as Linen making,
Steelworking etc, before moving on to Shipbuilding and the construction of the
Titanic and its sister ships, the Britannic and the Olympic.
There were individuals who were focussed on with regards to who
travelled on the Titanic and what class they travelled in, and there was also a
fun little car ride taking you 'around the ship yard', and a visual show where
you travelled up the boat from the engine room up to the deck.
We saw an example of the cabins on the Titanic according to
the class travelled in, and then on to the launch. The sinking of the Titanic was done really
well I thought, silent images showing how the boat sank alongside visuals of
morse code messages sent from the ship as it was sinking and audio recordings
of survivors recollections of what happened.
After this, we returned to some of the people we had met beforehand
learning of their fate.
There were plenty of resources to look at news reports etc
and even places where you could look into your own anscestors who may have
travelled on the ship, and then an area about how the Titanic had been used and
inspired people in music, movies and stories.
Finally we went into the 'Discovery Zone' as we followed the discovery
of the wreck and retrieval of information, including a film of video taken by
the ROVs used to explore. We could even
explore the ocean floor ourselves using interactive screens, which was quite
good!
We all went back to our place in Dromore before heading on
out for dinner - we went to nearby Hillsborough to The Parson's Nose which we
found a menu for online yesterday and booked a table. Very delicious and enjoyable food I have to say
- if you're ever in the area I highly recommend it!
Tuesday 7th June
Today we visited Ulster Folk Museum. It had a Transport
Museum too but we only visited the Folk part.
The area was laid our like a street, similar to the American Folk Park,
however there were no stories of specific people like there were in the
American one. The area was split between
urban and rural, so we started with the urban and made our way through cottages
and a number of shops before having lunch and moving on to the rural part, which
was larger in area.
I think that there may be more buildings being added,
especially to the rural part because there is so much space and potential. They definitely need to work on a few things
here - as I said, there's no narrative, no story to follow, and the worst thing
was actually all the bits and pieces we were given when we began:
Map of the whole place
Audioguide
A key to what had changed on the audioguide
A pack of cards with written information about each
building, numbered
A key to what had changed within the pack of cards,
numberwise
Most places had an information panel inside them anyway,
explaining more or less what was on the cards.
So it was annoying at first having several things to consult as we went
around, but in the end we decided to go with the information boards in the
buildings themselves as it was easier.
Overall a very interesting place to visit and it does take a whole day
to go around, although it needs work with the guidance and it needs some sort of
story to follow!
Wednesday 8th June
Today we went out to the Mourne Mountains. The weather seemed like today would be the
best day of the week to do this, and Mathew really needed to go up a
mountain! Onward we went, although it
was very foggy the forecast said there would be sunny spells and we were
thinking that the sun would burn it off around lunchtime. We weren't in any hurry so we prepared a
packed lunch to take with us and throughout the entire journey there we didn't
really see any mountains at all, in fact we saw very little of the
landscape. Still, we parked up and
started our route up to Duan which is about 584m high. This area is like a mini Lake District so the
height of these mountains is roughly similar.
The route was a bit annoying at first - that really chunky gravel which
is actually much more dangerous at least for me, my ankles could have easily
turned at any point, but I just have to keep looking at the ground as I'm
walking through it! Finally the path
wore out into grass and rock and we made our way up a ridge towards the Mourne
Wall. At this point it was still quite
foggy and we had literally no scenic view - we could only really see what lay
ahead of us for about 100m. 
Over the wall, we heard and saw some people at the edge of a
nearby lough - the cloud seemed like it was beginning to lift, but then it came
down again. The ground was boggy but was
quite a dry bog because there had been very little rain recently so this wasn't
aproblem. A little later we found our
mountain by silhouette, and headed for it.
It was quite straightforward to get up and it was very rocky on the
top. We stopped for lunch and watched
the cloud rolling in, out, and back in again.
No, we didn't have as great a view as hoped as the sun had not burned
off the cloud at all. The air was sticky
and warm and the fog may have been a sea fog rolling in from the
coast and it just kept coming. It was a
shame, and I know you can't really predict these things but I had no sense of
scale as to how far I had actually climbed, and we were unable to see any of
the surrounding mountains at all - just vague shadows. Duan is more or less in the middle of the
Mournes and is nowhere near the highest, however the view would have been pretty
good from there if the cloud had cleared.
We stayed a while and saw glimpses of what we might have
seen, before we headed on downwards and watched the fog lift just a little
more, By the time we had returned to the car we could at least see the ridge of
the Mourne Wall from the car park but we could also see that the cloud had not
lifted very far, so if we had done this in the afternoon we may have got a
better view at the top of Duan but we would probably have been missing the tops
of most, if not all the surrounding mountains.
Afterward we stopped off at a place called 'The Silent
Valley' and we weren't aware that there was going to be a charge to get in
before we even arrived. Before we knew
it we had paid £4.50 and to be honest, yes its a nice enough place but its
certainly not worth that much!! We felt
that, as we had paid we needed to walk around the reservoir, which we did of
course - there were a number of trails around the valley. The main viewpoint should have given us the
reverse view of what we should have had from the top of Duan but we could not
even see the top of the mountain in the mist which still had not cleared from
the Mournes. We continued past the
Visitors Centre which was basic but quite good with regards to the information
of the history of the area and its wildlife, and the cafe which was NOT open
and looked like it had been closed or not used for some time, despite the
leaflet we were given on entry stating that the cafe was open all day every day
in June, July and August. Given that
this was June 9th not June 1st we didn't really understand...perhaps their
information leaflet needs altering to state that there is no cafe. Who knows whether it had been open the
previous few months on the days of the weeks it specified? We guessed not.
Doubly disappointed about the day, we headed home and hoped
the weather would be better for us tomorrow.
On the way we stopped off to buy scones and jam which cheered us up - we
had our own cream tea today!
Thursday 9th June
We started the day with a visit to Nendrum Monastic Site,
which is quite small, there's not a great deal there but there are some remains of a 5th century Monastery alongside some industrial works in the form of a watermill.
Onward to Mount Stewart, in a recent list of one of the top 10 'Must See' gardens in the World. We started by going into the neo-classical house (1920s -
1950s). It was very airy and spacious, lots of chandeliers but nothing too over
the top. I particularly liked the plain, non fussy ceilings! The garden was absolutely epic. We started
with the informal garden with rhodedendrons and a park like feel to the place
with plenty of paths to explore. We
followed the red squirrel trail - sadly no squirrels crossed our path but the
walk was very nice and enjoyable.
The formal gardens were fantastic - yes they were formal but
they were fun! Lots of crazy sculpture and topiary going on, we had the Italian
Garden, the Spanish Garden and the Dodo Garden which we particularly enjoyed. Sculptures included a 'Stegosaur', a 'Dinosaur', of course Dodos and
lots of orangutangs with flowerpots on their heads (planted of course), the
orangutangs themselves were sitting on what I think were supposed to be goats
(there were hooves involved!) with crazy human faces. These were my favourite as there were so many
of them!
Friday 10th June
We started the day by visiting the Navan Centre and Fort. This is a prehistoric settlement, and I have
to say there was much more there than we were expecting! First off we were given headphones while we
walked around the indoor exhibition which had interactive displays combined
with the narration on our headsets which was a good idea, although some of the
touchscreens weren't that responsive, we got the general idea of the story
being told. Next, we were told that we
could watch a film but we had to wait until the room was free, so we went into
the 'Archaeological Experience' room as it was only a 10 minute wait. It was set up for kids of course, but there
was a really fun 'dig box' - a wooden box divided into 9 squares, and within
each square were three cushions. The top
cushion had a soil pattern on it, and the ones underneath either had more soil
or some artefacts such as a bangle or a sword printed on them. A great idea which Mathew took a
photo of, as he is involved in running Young Archaeologist Club
sessions!
Finally we went into the theatre and were given a choice of
the short (12 mins) film or the long (20 mins) film, after which we would be
able to go to the outdoor 'living' exhibition. So we chose the long showing and
sat through a number of Irish myths and folk tales before being taken up to the
round house inside which there were three people dressed up and acting in
character, along with three people visiting from Canada.
They talked about the way of life, what they would eat and a
bit of weaving and grinding flour as well, before taking us outside to show us
their garden and explaining what the plants were and what they could be used
for, not only for colouring wool but also medicinally. We returned to the Centre and had lunch
(Vegetable Soup), before continuing with a self guided tour to the fort which
consisted of two mounds. We were
fortunate not to have got caught out in the rain, although we saw lightning and
thunder heading our way and we had a light shower before we returned to the
Centre.
In the afternoon, we went to Armagh Observatory and in
particular went to look at the 'AstroPark' which was basically a sculpture
park depicting the Universe...! We started with a representation
of the Universe which stretched out to scale, although Earth was the only model
planet which was not actually to scale!
Moving on we came across a Hypercube where each cube was 10 times bigger than the previous one, and the math made our heads hurt...! Next we walked up the 'Hill of Infinity'
where there were a number of plaques on the ground stating how many light years
away we were from the Sun and where various galaxies were, until we reached the
edge of the known Universe where I took a photo looking back at the Hypercube! At the top
of the hill there was a stone calendar, featuring a modern standing stone circle explaining where the sun rises and sets at the equinoxes.
Further around the corner there was a 'Human Orrery' which would be fun
with more people actually - plaques in the ground followed Planetary orbits and
stated how many years or days or took to get to the next spot. The idea was to pick a planet, find its
plaques and trace its orbit at the same time as someone else doing the same
thing with another Planet so you could see the difference. There were also some comets on there too.
At 3pm it was an early finish for us, but that wasn't a bad
thing - this was our last day and we would be heading home tomorrow. We needed
plenty of time to pack before leaving.
The following day was a simple route to Larne, yet another incredibly
calm crossing on the ferry, a second stay in The Fox and Pheasant and the final
drive home.
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