A benefit of being
parked with lorries was that they provided some shelter from the
wind! The morning was bright, breezy and clear and we were up
reasonably early for the run down the coast to the ferry terminal at
Cairnryan as we had learned that there were major roadworks causing
long delays – indeed TomTom had indicated delays of over an hour
last night although only a couple of minutes this morning. As it
turned out, this morning all the delays were for northbound traffic
and as predicted we were only halted for a few minutes – there had
obviously been a landslip and half the carriageway was perched
precariously over a long drop!
Arriving at Cairnryan
in heavy rain we were quickly checked in and directed to a loading
lane where we waited for half an hour before, exactly on time, we
were loaded onto the ship. Looking for somewhere comfortable to
“weather” the expected roughness we noticed that there were
hardly any travellers around, although there had seemed to be quite a
few cars. Again bang on time the ferry left port with the captain
stating he expected a reasonably smooth crossing, which it actually
turned out to be, the only “movement” being during the short
section when we were exposed to the southerly gales. But chatting
with Colin and Tina and enjoying a light lunch distracted us so that
we were pleasantly surprised when they announced our imminent arrival
at Belfast, again spot on schedule.
Offloaded quickly and
efficiently we were soon heading through the outskirts of Belfast,
mainly on the extensive motorway system and seeking the M2 heading
west. On the advice of our Funster friend we'd picked Enniskillen for
our first stop, mainly because it was a nice two hour run but also
still in N.I. so technically we could properly claim we crossed from
Northern Ireland after a stay into the Republic. A short stop at a
service area to walk the dogs, who had been cooped up for around four
hours, quite long enough but they didn't complain, then followed the
satnav on quiet roads until we arrived in Enniskillen during late
afternoon rush hour. Our recommended stop was a riverside carpark
just beyond the town centre so we enjoyed the sights whilst crawling
along in heavy traffic.
Although it was just a
piece of unused open ground behind a garden centre which had been
spread with hardcore, it was a lovely quiet spot with views back to
the town and it's old castle and cathedral. Jamie wanted to make
friends with a family of swans but mother swan was having none of it
so he tried chasing the ducks instead, surprising us by venturing
quite a way into the water, he normally preferring to avoid the wet
stuff.
We settled into our
usual routine, a cuppa whilst we sorted out then later a meal
followed by an hour discussing our onward plans. Unfortunately the
weather forecast is unfavourable so we'll have to take it as we find
it.
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