An earlyish start to an absolutely beautiful morning – this really is probably one of the best “wild camping” sites we've been on this trip, but then again the weather does help!
But now we have to say bye-bye to Colin and Tina, our three-week travelling companions and start heading north. We were not sure of how far we would go today as we have two days to reach Belfast so opted to avoid the motorways and just stick to the “N” roads which are generally very good and, apart from in the towns and villages, we travel no faster on the motorways. So a bit of backtracking to New Ross then made our way to Tullow, where we refuelled which will be more than enough to get us home. We enjoyed a very quiet and scenic run before looking for a lunch stop; we tried for a picnic spot but couldn't find it then another but which had a height barrier. There was not much else so we reverted to our regular trick and went into Aldi's carpark in Blessington, making a few purchases of course.
Bren had espied a national lace centre at the small town of Carrickmacross, which was more or less on our route, so making good time we headed there – only to find of course that it was closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. A quick stop therefore to re-plan and we decided that as we were already quite far north we'd just head straight for Carrickfergus, our planned stop just north of Belfast.
TomTom took us onto the main motorways which took us around Dublin, nearly getting it wrong at one point and just missing a lane separator, then onto the main route to Belfast, also passing through an automated toll – must remember to pay that later. We pulled in to a layby just before the border for a cuppa and were appalled at the litter, something we'd not encountered anywhere else in the Republic. Was it because we were almost back into the UK?
Then Nellie decided to be uncooperative and wouldn't track so we could publish our day map. Not to worry, it was only a small section which could be “pencilled” back in later. Around Belfast again on the motorway system before arriving at the big carpark by the castle at Carrickfergus. There were already a couple of vans parked up so we slotted in alongside them, emptied the loo (there is a service point here) and settled in for the night.
As our ferry isn't until Wednesday we'll probably stay put here and maybe go out for a final holiday meal – there are several options around.
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