Wednesday afternoon we flew From Edinburgh to Belfast where we were met at the airport by David’s radar colleague, Alastair, from Queens University Belfast. We hadn’t realised that there were two airports in Belfast and had flown into one on the other side of the city from where he lives so it was a fairly long haul back to his place where we were staying. En route we discovered that Belfast is having its wettest summer since 1789 so any hopes that we would be drier than in Scotland where quickly squashed. However like Scotland the people were friendly and we were able to make the most of breaks in the weather to get out and about.
On Thursday and Friday David and Alastair were working and I took the opportunity to visit the guy who is running the Sustainable Cities pilot in Northern Ireland and to have a look around the city centre.
Although ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland are supposedly over, a drive through suburbia quickly revealed quite distinct neighbourhoods of nationalists and loyalists and there were military choppers hovering around at times.
But none of it impacted us. We were staying out in the country with Alastair, his wife Sarah and their daughter Louise (plus dog Lucy and horse Scarlet).
They were fantastic hosts who took care of us royally and drove us around some great sights and even on to Dublin where we were to overnight before an early morning flight to Finland.
On Thursday night we went down to Dundrum Bay to eat seafood at a place that Louise had discovered. I had oysters and then tried sea trout for the first time.
Dundrum bay has a wonderful castle which looks down on the village of Dundrum and across to the mountains of Mourne.
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