Author Archives: Michael

Arriving in Galway, from the Connemara area, we made a beeline to the harbour, which often represents a promising spot to park for the night. This time, it didn’t look so good — somewhat on the industrial side, not surprisingly — so we pulled over for a quick stint of online research, and found out that the nearby promenade had … Continue reading

Here are some things we’ve learned so far, both logistical and otherwise. First and foremost: We’re finding that travel by motorhome is a wonderful way to see the world. It allows one to immerse in the world far more than other kinds of travel, especially when ‘wild-camping’ out in it; it permits travelling at one’s own pace, with the ability … Continue reading

After a very scenic drive through the mountains, we arrived fairly early in Letterfrack, at the slightly-disappointingly-crowded visitor centre. With, refreshingly, most of the day ahead of us, we decided to do the 7km walk up to the top of a nearby mountain, Diamond Hill. The beginning of the walk, starting at the visitor centre, felt a bit like being … Continue reading

From the Sperrins, we drove for what seemed like three or four times as long as we expected, stopping on the way to get fuel, empty the dreaded black water and top up on fresh water. Once we were about an hour over the border into the Republic of Ireland, the motorway became very picturesque, with enormous steep-sided mountains and … Continue reading

Belfast behind us, we drove west for a long way, following the motorway. We arrived in Strabane in the evening, a town right on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; picked a random road that looked relatively promising, leading towards the river that marked the border, and stopped when we found an adequately out-of-the-way clearing beside … Continue reading

For our final day in Belfast, we were doing a Taxi tour, which gives an insight into the Troubles, among other things (see the route here). We filled up our LPG tank in a little petrol station on Shankill Road, every surface covered with the Union Jack. We parked in a car park just off Shankill Road (which, for reasons … Continue reading

The Causeway Coast tour complete, we made our way back to Belfast. On the way, we spent a sneaky night hidden away at a golf club in Galgorm, Ballymena, tucked behind an old brick wall amongst woods on the grounds (I did ask permission – the guys behind the counter said we weren’t really allowed to stay in the car … Continue reading

Having woken up and found ourselves in a car park in Cushendall, we set off again in bright sunlight down a small suburban road recommended to us, off the official Causeway route. To our great pleasure it quickly became a winding rural road, snaking through rolling emerald-and-yellow patchwork hills punctuated by four-or-five-house proto-villages. Sometimes the road was perched on hillsides … Continue reading

With a week to go until Katherine’s course, it was the perfect opportunity to go on a wee driving tour of the north east corner of Ireland, understandably a fairly famous stretch of coast. First we stopped in on our friendly and helpful host at the CL site in Islandmagee, who gave us a few pointers for the trip — … Continue reading

Having woken up and gone through our morning routine, security intact and all belongings accounted for (it was our first wildcamp, so we were admittedly a little nervous), it was time to start the journey towards Belfast, for an art therapy short course Katherine had booked months in advance, when all this seemed a lifetime away. Our first stop was … Continue reading

We turned up nice and early for the ferry from Pembroke to Rosslare in the Republic of Ireland’s South East, and sat in Nettle while I did some last-minute caravan park/wild camp/mobile Internet research from my painstakingly slow iPhone. Time came, and we were herded by friendly and jocular Welshmen onto the ferry, a big ol’ cruse-liner-esque thing: Nice and … Continue reading