Still drip feeding you with news of our recent Irish holiday.

Day 8

Time to move to Northern Ireland. The sat-nav asked if we wished to avoid a toll road. We said we did. We probably didn’t. Avoiding the toll road took us back to the dreaded Dublin outskirts, abounding with bus lanes and traffic lights. Fortunately we made it through and headed north on the N2. We even managed to find some services where wifi was available. Yay! 212 emails to wade through.

Our next home was a site in the  Kilbroney Forest, on the edge of the Mountains of Mourne. Now this really was our kind of site. Wonderfully friendly and helpful staff, a very special setting and wifi, albeit a little shaky at times. I could see the sea from my caravan bed; wonderful. Somehow I didn’t expect it to be so picturesque. Apparently, Rostrevor used to be called  several other things, including Castle Rory. It became Rostrevor in 1613 when Sir Edward Trevor married Rose Usher.

I was particularly keen to see the area as my dad was stationed here during the war. His letters to my mum, whom he had just met, survive and it seems he mostly peeled potatoes, got bored and joined the camp choir. He was billeted at Ballyedmond, which is now a private residence. We managed to find it and the CCTV no doubt led to some alarm as I skulked around outside a fair bit. I realised that I wasn’t sure what he was doing here, apart from the peeling potatoes but it seems that Ballyedmond was a US air force base so that kind of makes sense as he was with the RAF regiment. Though why the US couldn’t service their own base I am not sure. I definitely need to find out more. We also drove along the forest drive and admired the view. The temperature was still in the high 20s, so it was quite cosy.

We had a television signal for the first time since Pembroke and channel hopping discovered the first Fisherman’s Friends film was being shown, so that was us set up for the night.

Day 9

A leisurely start and we set off round the Mourne coastal road to Murlough. The sand dunes here are believed to be 6000 years old and there is evidence of human habitation in the area for 4000 years. The dunes are home to rabbits that were harvested in the middle ages for fur and meat. The area has been protected since 1967 and is in the care of the National Trust, which means we get to park for free. We set off looking for the yellow marked poles that designate the South End Nature Trail. We hadn’t got very far when we lost track of the yellow poles. We had white poles. Have they perhaos run out of yellow paint? We slogged up and down sand dunes in weather that was really too hot for this. We did however find the spot where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea. It was hazy, so the mountains were not very clear. I noted that the guide said that this route was wheelchair friendly. No way was where we were wheelchair friendly. We were lost. We found our way back to the car park and decided that one can have too much of hot sand dunes so consoled ourselves with a chocolate muffin (me) and a bacon bap (Chris).

We drove to Silent Valley in the Mourne Mountains. You have to pay £5 per car to enter. The nearby dam took 2000 men forty years to construct and was opened in 1933 to provide Belfast with water. The granite Mourne Mountains are beautiful but more barren than the Wicklow Mountains and I think the Wicklow Mountains have the edge for me. There are some interesting dry boulder (as opposed to drystone) walls edging tiny fields. The Mourne Mountains are a location for game of Thrones apparently; having never watched it, that doesn’t make much impact. We followed a short ‘Nature Trail’, spotting some long-tailed tits and then walked up to see the dam. There was supposed to be a café and visitors’ centre but these were either very well disguised or closed. We then attempted to drive round the Ring of Gullion Trail, we managed to find our way on to it. The landscape was greener here but it probably wasn’t worth the diesel.

The Mountain of Mourne Sweeping Down to the Sea