BootsnAll Travel Blogs

Danny, Tucker and me decided to go over to Northern Ireland to watch the NW200 – sounded like a great idea, though with Gillys birthday, we’d actually have to come back BEFORE the racing!!!

anyhoo, we rode over to Stranraer on the Saturday morning – and -after coffee and brekkie sarnies for me and Danny whilst gay Tucker had a Latte and pancake – got ABSOLUTELY drenched in wild rain and winds. Luckily though, we got to the ferry port early and found ourselves on the EARLY ferry rather than the one we expected (our intended ferry ran almost 3 hours late we found out later!!)

we dried off and had coffee on the ferry and by the time we disembarked at Larne (Belfast) the rain was almost stopped. We navigated thru to Hannahstown to stay overnight at Col and Maureens house, where Maureen had cooked a fab beef dinner for us.  A shower each (with Danny using his Lacy Louffa and me finding out that Col has one too!!!)Then it was off to Belfast for a night on the lash!

all well in the morning, Maureen produced the most gorgeous brekkie for us all including poached eggs!!! …what a darling! then after taking an AGE to get ready, we set off to the Dundrod (UlsterGP) circuit for photos and a racing start, then back to Larne and a trip up the famous Coastal road to Bushmills where we had booked a room in the hostel.

as we arrived I asked a guy stood outside a pub, where the hostel was, to which he opened a set of double doors and we rode THRU the beer garden, thru more doors into the hostel courtyard!!!!! PERFECT!!!

we got sorted in our ensuite room

“and then headed out for a beer

and then a walk to the Giants Causeway…..which turned out to be further than we thought so we got as far as the Visitor centre, then stopped, had a beer and got the steam train back!

more beers that night and an expensive – but VERYgood meal at a local restaurant

next morning ans we were up and out for 10am after a brekkie at the copper kettle next door. We rode along the coast to Coleraine then hit the twisties all the way down to Omagh where we had a nice sarnie and more coffee. Then back up to Portrush for a looksee (and to collect the brake fluid we were using to keep Tuckers Aprilia clutch going!) Back on the road we stopped short of Bushmills to checkout the great looking Dunluce castle overlooking the sea (though it should be noted that Danny missed the first turning and Tucker missed BOTH! .,….despite me waving like a loon at the junction!!!

Back at Bushmills we had supper and ……yep, MORE beer. We also met a group from Yorkshire…or was it Lancashire 😉 and had a laugh with them (we’d seen them in another pub we’d gone to to watch the football …which wasnt actually ON the TV :$ )

another late night for me and an early night for the two ‘ladies’ then we were up and out to go to the Causeway proper (very nice) and then the rope bridge (which Danny bottled) and then lunch at BallyCastle. A quick ride to Ballymoney (losing Danny on the way and meeting EVERY tractor in the northern hemisphere on the way) we visited Joey’s (Dunlop
) garden memorial then returned to Portrush to the race paddock. We had a walk around the garages and met Les Shand who Danny used to sponsor via his ‘bike bits company Faster By Design, then we headed back to Bushmills to drop off the bikes, get the bus back and watch the racing practice. burgers, doughnuts and coffee later and the practice ended under a red flag (we later learned a rider had crashed heavily. We walked into the town looking for food and beer, but found neither, so got a taxi back to Bushmills and after the LONGEST wait for chips takeaway, ate them in the local pub <thanks> and had a few more beers

Next morning we packed and left the SMELLIEST room in the world (courtesy of Tucker) and headed back down the coast to Larne.

A great trip …but maybe we should stay for the actual racing next year???

Tags: 1, ballymoney, belfast, bushmills, causeway, chuggy, danny, dunlop, giants, hostel, larne, motorcycle, northern ireland, NW200, portrush, race, racing, Travel, tuckerhauser

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.