Bells of Belfast
Another time for a get away this time for my friends Birthday. After her friend from Germany decided she couldn’t make it, it was decided that she would go away anyway and invited me along to share it with her so off to Belfast we went.
Leaving on the Saturday and returning on the Sunday it was a rather short trip but was still good and like everything its what you make of it.
After being let off at the bus depot and trying to find out where our hostel is we headed off in the rain to find it. According to our map we should have been within walking distance but as it turns out we took a wrong turn and headed in the other direction with our bags and raincoats. After walking for about 20minutes with it still pouring down we finally settled that perhaps we should just catch a taxi, however unlike Dublin with Belfast being very English this proved to be more difficult than expected, as the cars were on the wrong side of the road and wouldn’t stop for us. We later found out that taxis won’t stop for you so you need to be at a taxi stand or to ring for one. After walking around abit longer we came across the main taxi stand and managed to get one to take us to our hostel. Lucky for us it was one of the more tradditional brittish taxis the little black looking beatle cars (yes i know they arn’t). We were amazed at the fact that although they look tiny from the outside they are massive inside, we thought would be awesome to have a party inside except though your not allowed to eat or drink inside of them which is kind of a downer.
We were greeted at the hostel by a guy working there who was nice but a little strange. During the usual chit chat of where are you from? how long you here for? etc he seemed to do the childish of im not telling you which didn’t bother us but he kept pushing for us to guess; again like a small child wanting to play. He showed us around and everyone we seemed to meet aparently worked there. Our room was pretty nice it was a 6 bedded dorm and we were sharing with a couple of girls from Germany, one from France and the last from the UK though she was born in Ireland.
We started off by taking a trip to the much talked about Titanic museum. Everyone I had spoken said it was a must do. As Belfast was the place of the Titanics building and its departure point there is signifigant importance here. The museum goes through the building of the Titanic through to its sinking.
There is a simulator that you can stand in that take you on a virtual tour of the ship through each of the floors and the classes of people. It shows what it would have looked like and all the facilities avaiable to the different people. They also have recordings from people who surivied the sinking and transcripts of the distress called out to other ships. At the end of the museum there is a interactive video that allows you to explore the Titanics resting place and the items that are still on the oceans floor including the bare head of a childs porcellin doll.
That night we decided to go out and celebrate my friends birthday refusing to let the rain dampin our evening, so of the the bottle store we went and picked up some drinks and back to the hostel to drink and get ready. Turns out after a day of traveling and rain we had very little energy and was about 11pm that we finally decided if we were going out we ought to be going about now. Our taxi driver earlier had given us some pointers on where the best
places to go so we made our wat to the main street where all the local pubs were and on our we stopped off at another bottle store and picked up another couple of drinks before finding ourselves hiding out in a booth of some sort on the street trying to stay dry while finishing our drinks, was a site to see as it was a rather small booth. We didn’t end up going to many pubs we stayed mostly at one pub that had some pretty good live music and we found ourselves sitting next to a heater in the middle of what seemed to be a private birthday party so we sat discretly in the corner hoping no one would notice, it worked well until i broke something of the fireplace which crashed to the ground, lucky most were too drunk to notice. After that place closed we went looking for another place to go, as for both of us clubs back home would be open later than 2.30am and the night was still young, we started walking and sure enough ended up lost and again trying to either hail a taxi or find somewhere drive. Provided some nice entertainment though between trying to find somewhere to go and trying to figure out how to use the public toliets.
The next day we had booked a trip to Giants Causeway, another must do site that is famous for its rock formation, abit like pancake rock in the West Coast. Sure enough the 62year old lady from the UK who was staying in our dorm had booked the same trip and ended up on our bus. She was a character lots of fun to talk to, and on entering the bus we noticed that she was carrying a stuffed duck. Had to ask; the duck was called Boris and Boris was on his OE and having his picture taken at all the places he’s been visiting and quite looking forward to the days trip. She said that shes been writing childrens stories about Boris although no one has read them, and they arn’t published yet and she has no grandchildren to tell them about Boris’ adventures but she was doing it anyway.
We drove past the active set for Game of Thrones which i haven’t really been watching, the tour group we went on also has the rights for the Game of Thrones tour which may need to do another time, however we did drive past the black castle set which you could still see snow on the hills from when they were last filming but we weren’t allowed to stop and take pictures due to security reasons.
Our first stop was the Carrick-a-do rope bridge. Anyone who knows me, knows that rope bridges and i do not agree after what i consider a traumatizing expeirence involving a 6 day hike, multiple rope bridges and white rapids and loose tramping bedding. Luckly to walk across was an option and one i obviously chose not to do. Though looking at it, it was nothing like the bridges i had crossed and was not as much of a swing that i thought and if it didn’t cost extra to cross this small bridge i possibly would have.
On to the next stop which was the main reason for being in Belfast and that was the Giants causeway. The story goes that someone called Finn is having problems with a Scottish Giant who is threatening the island. Enraged Finn starts throwing Antrim into the water which unfortuately begins to form a path which can them be used at stepping stones for the Scottish giant to cross, Finn initially thinks he can teach the Scottish giant a lesson, however he is massively terrifying and Finn turns around and goes home to hide. Due to the quick thinking of Finn’s wife who dresses Finn as a baby and hides him in a crib, when the Scottish giant saw the baby who he thought was very large for a baby got scared thinking that if this was the size of a baby then the father must be even worse, turned around and went home.
The actual reason for the rocks, while the giants story sounds more intresting is actually formed due to volcanic rock crashing, burning and cooling; forming these basalt columns.
When we got there the weather had started to clear and the sun decided to come out that it was getting hot. You have to walk down from the entrance to the shore line so just as well it wasn’t raining. Getting there and looking at these stones at first you don’t notice the shapes they merely look like pillers and giant stepping stones. When you get closer to start climbing them you begin to realise that unlike most stones their shape is not round but a hexagon shape which i guess is why the story of the giants sounds more appealing, than the fact flaming volcanic rocks can form into such a distinctive shape. We spent the afternoon climbing up and down these rocks and enjoying the sun before we then started a climb up over the hills back to the bus. While climbing the what seemed to be like never ending stairs my friend and i turn round to see none other than our bunky carrying Boris up on this walk stopping every now and then to get his photo taken with people and the different scenes.
Well worth visiting, but one of those places that you really need a good day to go see to get the full impact of it. I would love to go back to Belfast at a time that its not pouring with rain and see more of the city as the conflict in Ireland is very much centred in Belfast and while is not as bad is still continuing. Two days after getting back a man was shot dead in his front lawn as backlash from the IRA, which is a huge reminder that things are still not as stable as media like to portray. Definitely worth a visit though.
