I wandered today, to the hills Maggie... (Off to Ireland, Day 1)

Into the car and off to Ireland, to put you in the picture, this was booked through Ryan air, the cheap flights people, and indeed it was cheap.. 2x return flights from Brum airport = 48 pounds..seriously thats about $70-75 Australian for the 2 of us, incredible!!

We then found a best western hotel, that normally charges 100 pounds a night for a double room and we booked 2 nights for a total of 51 pounds.. amazing huh.

So, lets begin, the trip to the airport... oh before that, ....we live 14 miles from the airport, so a lazy 20-25 min trip but to park there is more than the flights, so we have to drive to a long stay car park which is also about 25 mins away... but is then a further 15 minutes from the airport. plane leaves at 1pm...we leave home at 10am to me this is absurd, but all runs smoothly and we find ourselves at the airport slightly ahead of schedule but all good.

Now ryan air is cheap... and we had heard of the cattle transport style they apparently offer for example, you dont get allocated seating, essentially its first in grabs the seat, so against my preffered judgement we joined the queue earlyish in the hope we would sit together for the 1 hour flight. We were lucky enough to get together and the flight was fantastic, smooth, friendly staff, on time...all you could ask for, we would certainly recommend Ryan air.



as we fly into Derry airport there are the last remnants of snow on the hills surrounding it, they had unseasonale snow for a couple of days prior to our arrival and so the sunshine, green and glistening peaks were a beautiful arrival, we arrived at about 2.30 and didnt have any plans for the first afternoon so we jumped in the hire care (a teeny, tiny) ford KA

which was surprisingly spacious inside and quite pleasant to drive and headed to the hotel.. a slight attack of nerves as James, the ever trustworthy satnav man, recognised we were in irelend and where we were...but didnt recognise the road we were on and consistently advised that we were in a field. However we drove along, found the hotel with scary ease and checked in. the room was terrific, really big, nice telly, shower and bath etc etc all great.

Nic decided that as it was early and no plans  were in place for the afternoon, we should go and seek the snow... its possible this would be our last snow experience so off we went... the hills lay miles off in the distance... there appeared to be no towns (or roads for that matter) on them and there was an enormous river between us and them, but would that deter us.. of course not... off we set.

the first effort was thrill a minute, we pointed the KA in the right direction and headed off, along the lanes, past the hedges, bouncing up and down as the little car coped with the rough country roads, the further we went, the less confident we felt, sure this was much too small a road to get across the river, and it really looks as though only tractors ever use it... as we roared past a couple of farming gents standing at shed and zoomed into... well, into their farmyard... we decided that yes! we were indeed right, there was no way this was going to the hills, a sheepish 3 point turn.. and stare straight ahead as we go past the farmers again...lets try another road shall we.



Well, after an hour or so of, driving, swerving, guessing and laughing, we did manage to find a road that took us through the hills, and the snow and country air was beautiful and well worth the trip. As we headed back down along the smallish lane we rounded a corner to see a large tractor piled high with about 100 two metre tall fence posts balanced on it... well, thats not entirely true, it had about 50 balanced on it.. and 50 others spread across the road (one post had jammed in the tractor tyre and forced the others to tip out. as you can see there was no going past this, but, i couldnt just turn around and leave, so out i hopped and with my best aussie accent i said... "Gday mate, need a hand?"

To this i got...( in a very irish accent) "mummble..mmmmrrghhh...ahhmmm   mumble" I took this to mean "yes" and together we shared a special time throwing lumps of wood to the side of the road, once we had finished i shouted "seeya mate" he responded with  "mmmhmgghmm.. tanks... mmmgarrhhmm" and off we drove.

On the ever elusive search for food, i gambled on a trip into the city centre of Derry itself, now this was a gamble, i assumed that it would be like virtually all cities in Britain, which no matter what size... were a disaster when it came to traffic.. and ten times so at peak hour, instead we found that its no wonder they wanted to be seperated from England... this was a logical city, roads were good, people drove sensibly and there was no real traffic jam to speak of, we found a handy shop for some food and then went to Luigi's pizza bar where we met Luigi...well actually we met Seamus who had just bought the place... now we havent mentioned yet, just how quickly the Irish talk... really..really quickly, so quickly in fact that when Seamus began to tell us his life story... i had to stop him.. and actually tell him to slow down as we couldnt understand... this was of course to no avail, as we ended up understanding about 1 word in ten, but what the hell, an appropriate nod speaks a thousand languages (we hope anyway).

So back to the room, filled and looking forward to tomorrow and the Giants Causeway.