So having planned a
return to Ireland for September this year to finish the Wild Atlantic
Way, we've been keeping a very close watch on easing of restrictions.
We booked ferries anyway as we firmly believed by the time of our
visit there would be enough freedom for us to go ahead with the trip
but even so it was only a few days before that we finally decided to
travel. Ireland still had many restrictions, including a requirement
for a 14 day quarantine for travellers from the UK. However we found
a loophole; there were no restrictions on travellers from Northern
Ireland, neither were there any restrictions to there from the UK as
long as we had not been in any of the “naughty” countries within
the previous 14 days. I spent hours scouring the various government
websites, even trying to complete the on-line entry forms, which
wouldn't accept our itinerary, so I contacted a fellow Funster who
lived very close to the border to ask his opinion.
Basically, he said that
there were no problems, no checks and anyway much of the country,
away from the heavily populated areas, had not suffered although
there were of course the almost universal restrictions covering the
use of masks, hand-gel and “social distancing”. We had no
intentions anyway of visiting cities so with his reassurance we gave
it the green light.
Over the previous few
weeks we'd had a few jobs done on the van including replacement of
the barely-used aircon with a 12v reversible fan which we felt would
be far more use to us, with the bonus that we sold the aircon for the
same price as the new unit, just paying to have it professionally
fitted.
A change of insurers
meant we could also keep the van at home longer so this time we could
take our time loading up rather than the frenetic 24 hours, which is
what we did. So we were ready for our departure on Tuesday.
