A trip to Northern Ireland using a GPS
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This document was written by Paul Edwards and is released to
the public domain.

On 1999-05-14 we left London Heathrow at around 08:30 BST and
arrived at around 09:50.  I had taken with me all the things
recommended by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, ie
flackjacket, M16, complete works of William of Orange.  My
wife on the other hand had forgotten the her camera.  Prior
to going on this trip I had done a search of the internet to
try to find some waypoints but was unsuccessful.  I asked
someone from Northern Ireland what I should see there besides 
Stormont and Drumcree (from the news) and he told me a few
places.  I hadn't heard of any of them except (London)derry.
I thought he had listed too many things to do in such a short
time but he was convinced it was a small place.  So I had a
route but no waypoints.

We picked up the car at the airport.  We must have 
already paid for it over the phone (39 GBP for 24 hours) 
because they only charged us 5 GBP and that was 
because we asked if we could drop it off in the city, 
which was brilliant because it saved us at least 2 GBP 
plus an hour travelling time (I think the return fare for 
one person is 7 GBP).  The car came with a map so we 
switched to using that.  I had taken a waypoint outside 
the Belfast International Airport (BELAIR) so I set a 
relative waypoint for our next destination, Carrikfergus.  
My wife had been concerned about being blown up, but I 
had assured her that there was more chance of being 
killed in a car accident than being blown up (admittedly 
that statistic was based on a couple of assumptions, 
specifically the number of people killed by bombs and 
the number of people killed in road accidents).  
Regardless, after about 10 minutes of driving with me 
she was convinced.  But just in case, we had planned to do
the trip before my wife did her exams, so that death didn't
seem so bad.

We arrived at Carrickfergus Castle (CARRKC) at 11:06 
but didn't go in due to time concerns.  It was actually 
quite cheap entrance, 2.50 GBP or something.  We then 
wandered around the town hall (CARRTH), then a bit 
around the corner went to the Town Wall (I hadn't seen it 
in the tourist book but it was quite signposted, so we had 
a dekko anyway).  We then went to St Nicholas Church (STNICH)
which was closed.  An Irishwoman nearby approached us to
confirm that.

The map we had had had roads marked on it as scenic 
routes so I made a relative waypoint to point to the start 
of that and we headed towards that.  It was a coastal 
route and we soon arrived and headed around it.  We 
didn't feel there was a need for taking a waypoint at this 
stage, we thought the roads were fairly straightforward.  
We didn't question this policy until we found we were 
heading south!  We then attempted to travel north.  There 
was a problem with the compass versus the GPS (whilst
moving).  I didn't have enough time to technically analyse
the problem, I just decided to follow the GPS's advice.

After getting lost again I decided to create a relative 
waypoint.  Unfortunately the nearest waypoint I had was 
60km away (the airport) and my hand wasn't big enough 
to measure it and so the error was going to be large.  
Sure enough, my GPS told me to go southwest, and I 
was only 10km away.  So I decided to ignore the south 
advice but take a chance on the west, so went northwest.  
After taking a wrong turn we were about to turn back 
when we met an Irishman who confirmed the road I was 
going to take.  He also reckoned it was signposted.  
Unless they were using invisible ink I didn't see any 
signpost pointing the way to the Giant's Causeway.

We ended up arriving in a town called Portballintrae 
which at least allowed me to get a GPS location near my 
destination.  This still left the problem of getting to the 
causeway itself.  The map seemed to indicate a section of 
coastline to be the Giant's Causeway so I set a relative 
waypoint for the centre of it.  Later I found out that there 
was actually a red star which marked the spot.  So after a 
couple of blind alleys we eventually got heading in the 
right direction, and found about one or two signs pointing
to the Giant's Causeway.  

Even when we arrived we weren't free of navigational 
hazards.  The ticket machine was bust so there was a guy 
selling tickets on the driveway on the hill.  So I had to 
continually do hillstarts with a bikie gang behind me and 
in front.  The ones in front meant that if something went 
wrong it wasn't just a bikie gang that got wiped out.  So 
for 3 pounds you get the privelege of parking on grass - 
oh, and of course the opportunity to NOT go over that 
barrier that looks just like a speed bump, because it is 
quite obvious that the car doesn't fit!

There wasn't an obvious direction to go so we headed for 
the coast.  This took us around the back of some pub, over
a fence.  We saw some people going down some road who
looked like they knew where they were going so we vaulted
a fence and followed the general direction.  Then we saw a
sign outside some other building which turned out to be
the main entrance and that told us we had two options on
where to go.  I really think I need DGPS to tour properly.  

Anyway, we took the longer route despite the fact that 
no-one else was (presumably because they didn't have 
the confidence that goes with owning a GPS receiver), 
didn't see a great deal that they couldn't see, although we 
did get to see the "organ" (ORGAN).  Then we walked to 
where the crowds were, saw some sign which said to not 
go to the spots marked as dangerous (without actually 
saying how they were marked), so we took a chance and 
cimbed up the closest ones which I thought were the best 
(GIANTC).  I think the longer route was a waste of time 
really.

The rocky area consists of huge rocks which are like 
long cylinders several metres long and 30cm diameter
except they aren't cylinders they are pentagons.  Certainly
nature doesn't create too many of them.  The whole main
area was about 100 metres long, but it's all the same really
so the only reason to go out further is if you're some
smarmy 10 year-old kid who thinks he's really cool and is
going right out to the very edge like he's the first brat
to have ever performed this amazing feat and can't resist
putting his hand in the water as though that marks the
achievement in history just like a dog pissing on a tree.
So anyway, after pushing all the smarmy brats out of the
way I got right to the very edge and took a waypoint from
the outcrop (GIANTO)!

I met my wife on the way back to let her know that there 
was nothing out there, and the water wasn't particularly 
amazing or anything (having put my hand in to see).  We
then noticed that the management had carefully laid out a
smorgasboard of seafood.  It was self-service though.  And
I soon realised that what self-service meant was that I had
to serve my wife.  Not only that but she wanted to know if
they were poisonous.  I said that they weren't based on the
fact that I thought they were yams, although I couldn't
actually remember what yams looked like, but I'd seen these 
before.  Anyway, it was all in the name of science.  In 
hindsight they might be called barnacles.  Anyway, evolution
had served some of the barnacles poorly, giving them enough
of a hump for me to get my finger around.  The first one
came away cleanly, but then my wife had a taste for them so
I went to get another.  I got the second one, but not
cleanly, I lost a chunk of skin.  However, Boffo had thought
of that too, and provided seaweed as bandages.

We returned to the main entrance (GIANTE) and decided to try
the local shops to see if they were the usual highway
robbery you find anywhere that you find gullible tourists,
but they weren't, so we got a hot dog and a coke.  The
shopkeeper actually wanted to know what flavour I wanted on
my coke, but before I said "that blackish wetish sugary
cokish flavour will be fine" I realised she said "cone"
instead of coke, thinking I wanted an ice-cream cone.  I
also bought some honeycomb for later, as that is an unusual
find.  My wife hated the sausage in the hot dog.  I thought
it was more-or-less the usual mix of sawdust and dogs vomit
but she insisted on getting a burger too.  Still not
satisfied she got a cone too, although I'd never seen
black ice-cream in a can before.

Our next stop was meant to be Portrush.  We noticed a 
castle on the way so stopped for a moment at Dunluce 
Castle (DUNLUC) to have a gawk.  We continued on 
until we found a sign which appeared to indicate that 
White Rocks was down this dodgy-looking road.  This 
was the sight we wanted to see in Portrush so we took a 
gamble.  I can't say that this was definitely the place 
(WHTRCK), but it was actually a beach, made with sand 
instead of the normal stones typical of Britain.  There 
were meant to be some strange shapes in the limestone 
cliffs, especially one which was a cave.  We saw 
something which might have been it.  It is possible we 
were looking from the wrong spot, as we had previously 
driven past what appeared to be a large hole in the 
ground, maybe you're meant to get out there.

We went through Portrush proper (PRTRSH), taking a waypoint
as we passed some church.  Then we headed to Portstewart,
and as we came in there were delays, which turned out to be
masses of bikies gathering.  According to the radio there
was some bikie do on the next day.  As we passed through
the town we saw some big building on the hill, so attempted
to get there.  We got there at about 16:23 and it was some
sort of college (DOMCOL).  I'm not exactly sure what's so
great about Portstewart that I was meant to visit it.  The
tourist book didn't seem to mention much.

We then headed to (London)derry.  Interestingly the signs
all said either Londonderry or L'Derry.  We had previously
been told that the thing to see there was the city walls.
I was a bit skeptical about how interesting a wall could be.
They've never been great conversationalists when I've
attempted to strike up a conversation.  Regardless, we arrived
there and followed the signs to the city centre, assuming
that that's where the wall was likely to be.  There were no
signs pointing the way to the wall and we were soon so lost
that we appeared to be leaving Londonderry altogether!  So we 
did a screaming u-ey and tried again.  We missed it again,
despite going around a roundabout about 20 times trying to
read the signpost with 15 signs on it.  It turned out not one
of them had the wall on it.  Compared to Carrikfergus's
proud wall this one must have been some piddly little speed
bump.

We exited the roundabout through some archway that 
looked pretty old, then past a church that looked pretty 
grand, and parked our car nearby.  I got out to find out 
what the church was so I could find it on my map.  I 
couldn't find it on the map but for some reason I decided 
it would be a good idea to assume it was northeast as in 
our tourist guide so we set off.  We went back to the 
archway and found a sign near it.  It said various things 
about the wall and a whole map of it, but neglected to 
mention where we were in relation to it!  I postulated a 
theory, then asked a passerby if they knew whether it 
was correct, but of course they didn't know, although she 
thought I was right, and also told me the name of the 
street street we were on.  I then went to the other side of 
the archway and finally found a sign!  We were at Ferry 
Quay Gate (FERRYQ).  

I went back to the map and was still trying to figure out 
which way the wall went when I heard a sound from 
above calling my name.  I looked up expecting to see 
either the Catholic God or the Protestant God but in fact 
it was my wife, the Agnostic God.  She'd found the way 
up onto the wall!  And it was a massive wall indeed.  We 
walked for some time along the wall, pausing occasionally
to spit on the pedestrians, went past St Columbian's Church
(named after the famous lolly), then came to another gate.
We climbed down to find it was Bishops Gate (BISHGT).  We
then decided to head back to the car using the GPS and
compass.  We passed some building with no name that looked
like it was modern-day Roman (ROMAN) then passed St
Columbian's (STCOLM), then back to our car.  

By this time it was about 19:00 so we decided not to go 
to our next planned stop of Eniskillen and instead make a 
beeline for Portadown.  On the way we kept on managing to
get off the A-roads and onto B-roads, so most of the time
just had to be content with not knowing where we were, but
at least knowing we were going in the right direction, and
attempting to avoid as many lakes as possible.  I had made
a relative waypoint for Portadown too.

One wrong turn we made took us through a town called 
Dungiven which appeared to have a sign in support of 
the IRA our saviours, but I didn't get a close enough 
look.  However, we were going the wrong way so had to 
turn back, but we managed to miss the sign on the way 
back too.  We took a different exit past a church and took 
a waypoint (DUNGIV).

We passed through another place, Dungan (DUNGAN) which we
took a waypoint of for navigational purposes.  One other
technique we used was looking at the GPS's map as a
reference.  We arrived in Portadown at about 21:00.  We
were bloody lucky that there was still plenty of light.
The GPS had told us that sunset was at around 19:00 but
that must have been UTC because there was still a sun in
the sky then.  20:00 BST would have been about right.
Unfortunately there was no way of deriving the location of
Drumcree from first principles so we asked some kids, who
pointed us in the direction of a church we could see in
the distance.

We were driving along some road when we saw a swag 
of army vehicles on the road so we turned up there.  
They didn't stop us and we were able to get to Drumcree 
Church (DRUMCR).  We were incredibly lucky in that 
there was still light so we could see everything, even 
though it was 21:10.  We stood out like a roman candle 
in this environment, there were Protestants all around, 
I'm not sure if they had us pegged as Catholic infiltrators 
or what.  We walked towards the army trucks and saw a 
guy standing around halfway there so asked him some
pressing questions.

I wanted to know where the blockade was, I was under 
the impression there was miles of barbed wire and 
concrete blocks.  Turns out all they do now is block it 
with a van.  I didn't think it took too much imagination to 
get around a van, so I asked him why they didn't just go 
around and he said he didn't know, it was nothing to do 
with him.  I think he thought I was complaining about 
Protestant intranginence instead of the real question I 
was asking.  One other myth to go down was that there 
isn't anyone camping out, although there is a caravan.

We continued to where the vans were, passing some stall 
containing what could have been a potential lynch mob, 
then down to the bridge (DRUMBR).  I looked over the 
bridge but didn't see anything preventing people from 
crossing.  I wasn't sure what to do next.  We stuck out 
like sore thumbs right next to armed soldiers.  Fortunately
the ice was then broken by a soldier saying hello, so I
was able to ask the questions I was dying to ask.  They
used to have the place totally blocked, barbed wire etc,
but they since struck a deal with the Orange Order that
they wouldn't come in numbers so as to allow the road to
be reopened.

The next thing that happened was a woman came up to 
us, somehow figured that we were tourists, and decided 
to get us on board.  She said that they were stopping 
them from going through.  The army officer disagreed, 
saying that individuals were allowed to go through.  She 
insisted that she wasn't allowed past, the army and RUC 
would jump out of the van.  I then asked her very 
specifically whether *I* could go through and she said 
no.  I then decided to put that theory to the test and 
started walking through.  My wife was not so willing to 
research the finer points of RUC policing and required 
some convincing.

We went through, past a couple of army trucks where 
some of them said "hi", but held back from actually 
shooting, then past the RUC unit where a woman also 
said "hi" to us, without the traditional baton twirling 
display.  Then we were free!  We had achieved the 
Protestant Dream of crossing the Drumcree Bridge!  
Next step was to see if we could go down Galvachy 
Road.  We had been told by the army officer that they 
were trying to go down Belfast Road which runs into 
Galvachy Road.

On the way we saw a sidestreet, but it was unlikely to be 
the right one.  There were some young kids around so 
I asked them where it was and they directed us onwards.  
They also wanted to know if we were tourists.  I was 
about to say "No - we live in that house just there, for 
going on ten years now - I'm surprised you haven't seen 
us before", but I didn't think Northern Ireland was the 
place to do that.  They also wanted to know about the 
"watch" my wife was wearing, which was actually a 
compass (I normally wear the compass in our family but 
I can't use it whilst driving).  Then they popped the big 
question - were we Catholic?

Instead of all the answers I could have given, e.g. "is the 
Pope?", "mind your own business you snotty little toe-
rag", "I'm an atheist and my wife's agnostic, so just what 
evidence do you have for the existence of extraterrestials 
anyway?", I settled for "we're not religious".  I wasn't 
sure what territory I was actually in yet, it doesn't seem 
to be properly signposted.  I think they called out 
"Muslim" etc after us, but I wasn't worried about them, I 
was more concerned about the gang of youths ahead.  

This is one thing I've never seen in a first-world country 
before.  I have seen it in Fiji though.  Basically there is 
such a thing as a community.  Anywhere I've lived before the
only time you see the word mentioned is in the newspapers,
where they say "the whole community is outraged" (I bet they
laugh as they write that tripe), when what they actually
mean is the two "socialist workers oxymoron radicals" that
run the "concerned citizens against everything" club rang
them up to say that anyone who thinks allowing Woolies to
open on Sunday is a fascist western capitalist pig dog
who'll be up against the wall come the revolution just like
the grafitti says "WORKERS AND STUDENTS UNITE IN REVOLUTION
(preferably before I get my arts degree and become a dole
bludger thus end up not being either)". 

Anyway, so I'm more used to people going home and watching
TV, and seeing stats like more people watch Neighbours
(vomit) than actually know their own neighbours!  I'm not
saying that's a bad thing - I wish I didn't know my
neighbour (Vivian) who borrows cups of sugar without even
returning the cups, but that's not the point.  The fact is
that both sides of Northern Ireland have a cause to fight
and they're in the streets to defend their patch from each
other (and I was afraid possibly nosey tourists too).  So
something as mundane as just being on the street ends up
being fighting for your cause.

But nothing happened and I was soon on my way to what I
thought was Galvachy Road (GALVCY).  We walked along it a
bit.  It is quite a large road, both wide and long.  It was
pretty spooky.  We reached some club where someone called
out "hi" to us so I took the opportunity to confirm that
this was indeed the road.  He invited us into the club to
play darts or something, but I declined, for numerous
reasons, but none of which were to do with the Irish not
being friendly - they are extremely nice people when they're
not having their beliefs challenged.

We then went back, took a waypoint at the intersection 
of Galvachy and what I assume was Belfast roads - I took
the waypoint at a light pole with the Irish flag on it
(every light pole on the road appeared to have one), then
headed back to face the Protestants!  We got past the 
army barricades again, and the army officer I spoke to 
earlier made a remark along the lines of "isn't it good to 
have the freedom to walk the roads" whilst I had my own 
comment "that dispels one dearly-held theory".  I spoke 
to the army officer some more.  When they talked they 
moved around with their guns, meaning that they were 
pointing at me.  I asked if that was dangerous but he 
assured me it wasn't.  I think he might have meant it 
wasn't dangerous for him - sure, the odd nosey tourist 
goes down now and again, but anyone with such morbid 
tastes in tourist destinations deserves all they get!

I then asked the remainder of my questions.  He seemed 
offended when I suggested the possibility of using UN
troops - he reckoned the locals would just turn around and
complain that the UN should get out of Northern Ireland.
Ditto for joint British/Irish patrols.  And why didn't they
just use Northern Irish troops?  Well they are too involved
in the process and the locals know where they live.  And
were they really going to shoot people for crossing the
bridge?  He said not to tell them, but no, the RUC were the
riot squad and would come out with batons flailing if they 
tried it.

A Protestant was determined to take us away to a spooky 
caravan and I went along.  I looked back as I went back 
up the hill and I could see them do what they said they 
they did at this time of night which was to move a 3rd 
van between the other two to block the access.  The 
crowd gathers every night to make the point that they 
can't get through.  The Protestants also made quite an 
effort to get us to eat their really nice hot dogs which 
were free.  I would have been happy to eat one if I could 
insist on paying market price but we were short on time.  
The funny thing is that the hostel had insisted I tell them 
what time I was arriving, but wouldn't tell me what time 
I needed to be in.  So I told them I'd be in by 11:30pm at 
which point they said 6pm, but ring up if you're going to 
be later than that.  I rang them from the Giant's 
Causeway to say several hours yet, to which he inferred 
10pm, but it looked like my original estimate of 11:30pm 
was more likely!

So we arrived at the spooky caravan, with our guide 
saying the secret password to get us through the 
intercom, and we were in to Drumcree HQ!  The objective
was obstensibly to fill in the visitors book.  This was
not as straightforward as I expected, as there was a
spot to put remarks.  And everyone else had filled out
their remarks with things like "LOL 727".  Now I am
familiar with the "LOL" acronym from the internet, and
it means "Laughing Out Loud".  So it would appear on
face value that the visitors here remark at how funny a 
particular number was.  And they each had their own 
particular funny number.  The Irish really are barking 
mad.  Anyway, I attempted to ask what these remarks 
signified, but just got the official line, ie it's up to
you what remarks you put.  Oh great, I'll be the only one 
without a funny number.  And I can't just choose a random
number because that might conflict with someone else's
and they'll think I'm too unoriginal to come up with my
own number.  I would have chosen "pi" but there's always
some geeky egg-head who's always beaten you to it.  So in
the end I just went for a non-funny text line, ie "long
live democracy" (even though I am used to democracy
meaning just over 50% imposing their will on just under
50%, no sort of compromise), and my wife put "good on you,
Orange Men".  I didn't get any reaction to the messages
because they didn't have time to read it, we wanted to
get out of the spooky caravan as quickly as possible.

When we were back on the street, I decided to question 
our guide about what he thought should be done in 
Northern Ireland.  He actually hadn't attempted to push 
his point of view at all, I had to specifically ask for it.  
He was happy to tell me then, although the first thing he 
said was that he wasn't the best person to ask because he 
had a biassed point of view!  He didn't actually have any 
ideas on what to do, but then who does, all he had was 
his own aspirations which were to "remain" British.  A 
couple of times I attempted to suggest that he's actually 
part of the UK, not Britain, but it appears that only 
tourists know that the UK is short for "The United Kingdom
of Great Britain AND (as opposed to WHICH OF COURSE
INCLUDES) Northern Ireland".  I also asked whether he
thought the people in the Republic of Ireland supported
the IRA, and he reckoned they didn't (which concurs with
what I was told by someone from there), except on the border.

Our guide managed to protect us from a number of people
who were determined to make us eat free hotdogs by
fobbing them off with "they'll be down later", but then
we had to get going as it was getting very late.  He gave
us directions which included pointing out that the M1 was
only 2 lanes, it wasn't like England, so I shouldn't get
off it assuming I was on some country lane.  I wouldn't
have missed Drumcree for the world, it was a unique
experience for me and I love to see things from the news,
indeed, I felt this WAS the news, this was the front line.
I was even disturbing the front line, meaning *I* was
the news!

The trip to Belfast was fairly uneventful.  But once we got
there of course it was a shambles.  We knew from the map that
where we wanted to go was south, but we needed a reference
point to go south from.  I stopped at some massive, beautiful
church, took a waypoint, and my wife got out to take a look to see
what it was called.  She came back claiming it was just a shopping
mall, called "Spires Mall".  She had obviously missed the proper
sign, as if they'd build such a huge church and call it "Fred's
Fish & Chips Shop".  There were a couple of churches on the map,
so this one was probably St Anne's.  But I really needed another
bearing to be sure.

So we drove around randomly but didn't see any significant sites,
and just ended up back at Ye Olde Spires.  This time however we
noticed the Europa hotel which was on our map.  So we took a
waypoint and then attempted to get an unknown distance south of
Europa (the map didn't have a scale).  My wife wasn't so
enthusiastic about the map function, especially when Europa
disappeared and she couldn't figure out the scale quickly enough,
so she resorted to using the streets, of which a couple were
marked.  I didn't think it would work, and soon we had to pull
over to find out what street we were in.  After a couple of
minutes of searching, we discovered we were parked opposite our
hostel - Belfast Internataional Youth Hostel (BFIYH), at almost
exactly 11:30 PM!

The gates were opened to let our car in.  We had been told that
there was parking there but it obviously wasn't one per room!
We were very lucky there, getting the last spot.  There was a
kebab shop next door so we had big but pretty disgusting kebabs
for dinner.  I also gave the hostel their location.  We had a
tough decision to make for the next morning.  Breakfast (which
was 2 GBP each, the room was 10 GBP each) was between 7am and
11am, and the car had to be back at 10:30am.  So we decided we
wouln't waste time eating breakfast, we'd go straight to
Stormont, so set the alarm to around 5am then tried to get to
sleep amidst street noise from the midnight partiers.

We woke up unwillingly on schedule.  It was then that I
discovered two things - hostels don't provide towels and it is
possible to dry yourself with a T-shirt.  We wanted to play it
safe and find out where to return the car first.  We had the
address and the street, but of course we couldn't see the place
nor see any numbers.  After circling the block a few times we
bought some petrol in the same street and I went to find out
what number we were on.  We tried again, now that we knew which
way and which side.  Still missed it.  Back to the petrol
station and this time my wife walked down until she saw it.  So
we took a waypoint (BUDGET) and left.

First I wanted to see where the Titanic was built, so headed west.
We attempted to follow the signs to the "docks", assuming that
was the most logical place to build a ship.  Of course, this was
Ireland, so there was a fair chance we'd end up at a courthouse
instead.  In the end we ended up at some loading bay, and I am so
thankful it was the crack of dawn on Saturday because the number
of traffic violations I must have committed I was wishing I had
taken out fine insurance!

However, we managed to illegally park somewhere that I could see
the cranes (Samson and Goliath) that we were trying to get to,
so I made a relative waypoiint based on an estimated 1km from the
cranes.  There was someone around guarding one of the entrances
so I asked for directions as well.  Of course we got lost again,
or rather got confused as to which turnoff to take.  However the
end result was that where I illegally stopped to try to look up
the map ended up being the Lagan Lookout (LAGAN) so I took a
waypoint.  If there was something amazing about that spot I
managed to miss it.

So we took off again to find the Titanic place and came to some
spot (TITAN) which was the entrance to the new yards, and the
Titanic had been built opposite it in some old building.  This
we found out by extensive talks with one of the guards, but
even he had to check with his colleague to be sure!  The guards
were very friendly, telling us about the huge cranes, which
actually don't look that impressive to me because they don't
look like normal cranes.  He then directed us to go to the
other side to see an oil rig being built, which we did.

And then we headed west to find Stormont Castle.  We had only
scanty directions, basically just the name of the road, which
we managed to find after a bit of hassle (whereas when we
didn't need the road we kept on ending up on it).  It looked
like we were never going to find it because the road was
running out, but we passed some sort of park with enormous
gates and later a castle was visible, so we decided to turn
around and go back.  We parked down some sidestreet and
walked up, only then noticing that other people were parking
right in front of the gates (STRGAT)!

After getting inside there was a map showing us that a section
of the grounds was restricted.  But it didn't actually show you
what was inside the restricted area, e.g. Parliament House.
Indeed, I wasn't yet sure that it was parliament house!  We
decided to go up and see for ourselves, there was likely to be
signs outside the places we weren't meant to go.  On the way we
asked some people whether that was parliament house, and they
said it was.  And was there a castle?  Yes, and you can see it
best when you get up there.  And yes, that was the statue where
they were protesting.  And boy oh boy was it a long way from
the front gate to the door of parliament - over 1km - and I
now know how the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam,
manages to stay so slim - just by picking up the newspaper and
milk from her front gate!

We arrived at the statue (STRSTA), and there was still no signs
saying not to go further, but there were some vicious-looking
dogs up higher, so my wife stayed at the statue whilst I went
to get eaten.  One of the dogs looked like it wanted a piece
of me but the handler told it to stop.  The handlers weren't
actually in either police or army uniform so I assumed they
were paramilitaries doing their bit to protect the statue from
grafitti, since it was a Protestant statue.  Anyway, the end
result was that I got to the door of Stormont Parliament
(STRPAR).  I didn't name the waypoint as I took it like I
normally do, as I looked suspicious enough already.

Anyway, next stop was the castle.  There were trees blocking
my view but there was a little gap so I went there, but it
still wasn't very good.  So I went down, past some little
chair, then got to the castle gates (STRCAS).  I could see
the castle pretty well from here, but I stuck my head in to
see if there was anyone around who could tell me whether I
was allowed to go in or not.  A guard shook his head and then
came out.  He was very friendly but told me it was restricted.
I asked him about the paramilitaries and he told me they were
actually the dog trainers giving the dogs exercise.

I left then and met my wife back at the statue.  I asked her
if she'd already seen the castle and she said she hadn't
because there was a sign there which said it was restricted
access on the weekend.  After delliberating for some time, I
decided to go and explain why I ignored the sign (i.e. because
there isn't one if you come down the other way), and ask if
my wife could have a peek just like people who come down the
path can.  Unfortunately by the time I got there, what was
presumably the supervisor had come out, and came out some
distance so that we couldn't get to the gate.  But it was
sufficiently close to the gate so that my wife could still
see it as I asked if we could and pointed out the lack of
a sign.  He wasn't happy at all, saying the parliament was
restricted as well, so we went away, happy we'd seen as much
as we had.  I think it's half their fault though, they should
have a sign on the bottom saying where you're meant to go to
view the castle from.  I mean everywhere else it seemed to be
blocked by the trees.  And why is it only restricted on the
weekend?  The other half is my fault of course, for being a
busybody tourist not assuming by default that anything and
everything is restricted for legitimate security concerns.

So then we walked the 1.6km back to the car, then went to
the car rental place again, arriving at around 10:00.  The
place still wasn't open, as incredible as that may seem for
a Saturday morning.  I was starting to get a bit worried
after a while, as we were running out of time to get back
for breakfast.  Fortunately it opened by around 10:20 and
we were on our way back to the hostel, which for some reason
was chock-a-block with backpackers.  Real backpackers too,
i.e. the ones with about 10 ordinary suitcases worth of
stuff all rolled up.  Fortunately we were still in time to
swallow some grease and leave.

We then proceeded to do the walking tour.  Closest to the
hostel was Morab Church (MORABC), then some arts centre
(ARTCNT) of no interest, then Crescent Church (CRESCC),
at which point I decided to stop taking waypoints of
churches.  Which was a shame really, because when I finally
figured out where the description was in the tourist book,
I found that I had 2 of the 3 churches that mark the
entrance of the university road!

We managed to miss the Arts Theatre.  There was signs saying
it was there, the map said it was there, but someone
obviously failed to pass the message on to the builders.
Next we came to Queen's University (QUNI) which was
impressive, and opposite it was some church (UNITRC) which was
neither named nor on my map, so perhaps this was where the
builders had accidentally built the famous church-shaped Arts
Theatre.  I named the waypoint after the street it was in -
University Terrace.

Then we went across to the Ulster Museum (ULSMUS), which is on
the edge of the Botanic Gardens (which aren't as Botaniccy
Gardenny as I'm used to).  I think entrance is free but it
wasn't open and we didn't have time anyway.  In the gardens
is a Palm House (PALMHS), same deal as above.  Then I tried to
go to the Botanic Railway Station (I'd like to see that!) I'd
seen on so many signs, and according to my map it was just up
the road.  On the way we passed the Presbyterian Church
(PRESCH) which I thought migh have been the proper name for
UNITRC until my wife pointed out (confirmed by GPS) that it
was in the opposite direction.

Next was some Fitzroy Theatre (FITZRY), then we finally got
to the Botanic Rail Station (BOTRST). We also got a drink from
a nearby store and my wife looked at a clothing store.  Then I
realised we must have walked past the Arts Theatre again so
went back, and found some side alley (ARTSTH) that professed to
have an arts theatre in it.  But I was waylaid by some guy who
said they were filming, could I not go up.  I was a bit
suspicious about some guy who didn't even have a badge on telling
me what I could or couldn't do on what looked like a public
road, but in the end I just asked him whether this was the main
entrance or not and he reckoned it was, so I took my waypoint.

Mural time!  I was not familiar with the word, but assumed it
was those paintings you see on walls.  And there was meant to
be some very close, on Sandy Row.  It took quite a bit of
effort to actually find Sandy Row.  I managed to find some red
white and blue on the pavement, and then started off for some
seedy industrial area.  That was the wrong way, so I tried a
differrent street, and indeed all I needed to do was follow
the red-white-blue brick road!  And just a short distance later
I found one (SANDYR)!  And boy was it impressive!  Celebrating
the Battle of the Boyne, and "no surrender" in Latin.  And as
we went down the road there were more.

They got quite shocking really.  Basically most of them celebrate
the terrorists.  In the newspapers you see the editors saying
how the paramilitaries are just a small section of society that
don't represent the people, but with murals like that, I don't
believe a word of it.  Even if you accept that the Loyalist ones
were necessary (I don't think the IRA would have agreed to a
ceasefire if they thought there were no repercussions), what a
way to bring up your children!  That soldiers normally wear
balaclavas!!!  There was even a "young militants" mural, just in
case the youngsters needed a peer group to belong to and the
Boy Scouts seemed too violent.  There was another interesting
thing in that one of the murals had some grafitti on it -
"haha RIRA", and in the same colour, a mural celebrating one of
the paramilitary organizations, LVF or something, had "28 -
fuck all" written on it.  At first I thought they were saying
it only had 28 members, nothing worth writing home about, but I
don't think they actually know that sort of thing.  More likely
it means "only" 28 killed.  As Scooby would say, "Yikes", just
how many have the IRA killed?!

We then headed for Central Station where we were to catch a bus
to the airport later.  My wife went in to a clothes shop nearby,
whilst I tried to figure out where the station was!  There was
this huge sign on the footpath, but all around was shops, no-one
selling tickets.  After a while I decided to go in to what was
being advertised as a shopping mall.  A bit later and I found
the bus place (BELBUS), found the price (5 GBP one way) and took
the waypoint, even though that involved going onto the concete
area it says not to go on.  My wife didn't know I had done this
and I didn't mention it.

I took a waypoint at the Europa Hotel (EUROPA) which was right
next to Central Station.  My wife still hadn't finished shopping
so I decided to check out the pub opposite.  It was one of the most
beautiful buildings I have ever seen, but it was obviously just
painted on to concrete, you could tell from the consistency.  I
thought it would be really good if someone made a real one.  I
went across to the Crown (CROWN) just to make sure, and by god
it was real!!!  I even touched it, I couldn't believe it.  I
went inside to ask them how old this was, and it as beautiful
inside too, and 150 years unchanged.  When my wife finished
shopping I pointed it out to her, how it was painted, but she
thought (correctly) that it was real.  She wasn't as impressed
as me because you can see that sort of style in China, it's not
unusual.  I think it's probably the most fantastic building I've
ever seen.

We then passed the Opera (OPERA), then went in to the (now)
famous Spires Mall/Church (SPIRES).  I asked a local about it
and they said that it was converted from a church.  I saw
another large building so got another waypoint (MTSI) which
is some technical college I think.  Then we went to City Hall
(CITYHL).  I sat down whilst my wife went and did yet more
shopping.  I was trying to see what we could do in the
remaining time, it was about 13:15.  Judging by the distance
we'd come, I thought we were still in with a chance of going
to where I had really wanted to go, which was Shankill and Falls
Road to see the real murals.  My wife returned with some food,
but just as we were about to eat it, some bum sat down near us
and started smoking a bum cigarette and we had to move.  But
by this time the rest of the seats had been occupied, so we
started off again.  The Northern Irish seem to smoke less than
the British which was really great.

We went past some semi-converted (i.e. from Victorian to modern)
building in Castle Place (CASTPL), then into Cornmarket (CORNM)
where there was meant to be skinheads but all we saw was some
Scottish band.  We wanted to see these tiny little alleys
called "Entries", and indeed we did see one, but not the
Crown Entry we were looking for, then on to the Albert Clock
(ALBCLK), then the Ulster Bank (ULSBNK).

Next we were meant to be pretty close to St Anne's so we headed
that way.  We came to a big church with a sign outside saying
it was the Belfast Cathedral.  That wasn't on the map I was
using, but I had seen it mentioned on another one, so we had a
quick look before we moved on, because I could see another up
ahead, that was probably St Anne's.  But before we could escape,
we were accosted by a woman with a sheet of paper telling us
about all the things in St Anne's (STANNE).  I was wondering
if this was some Irish joke, where Belfast Cathedral advertises
St Anne's Church and vice versa.  I asked if St Anne's was the
church up the road and she reckoned it was this one.

She was obviously lying, trying to latch on to the publicity
of St Anne's.  She even said that the one up the road was a
Catholic church, in one final attempt to put us off leaving
for what was obviously the better church she was keeping us
away from.  Then I knew how to fool her, I asked her where
Belfast Cathedral was then, if she was so smart.  No, no-one
calls this Belfast Cathedral.  Aha, then why does that sign
out there say Belfast Cathedral?  Hell, I'd already named my
waypoint "BELFST".  She didn't seem to have an answer for
that, but anyway, just to be on the safe side,  I had a quick
squiz of the place, including the thousands of little pieces
of glass on the roof of one part.  Then I left to find out
what she was trying to hide.  One last thing I found out from
her was what on earth Protestants were, was it something to
do with King Henry VIII?  But no, it was one of the splinter
groups from the Reformation, which happened in Germany, by
people who weren't happy with Catholicism.

We then came to St Patrick's Church (STPAT), continued up
past the Orange Lodge (ORNGHL) which had defences on it
that made it look like it was a popular target.  Then we
came to the supposedly notorious Crumlin Road Gaol (CRGAOL)
although it wasn't advertised as such, and it didn't look like
it had much defence, didn't look like it was in use, and I'd
never heard of it anyway.  They should have built the Maze
prison here instead.  We came across another large building
(FLORPL), then headed down a road that according to my map
would take us through both Shankill and Falls Road, despite the
fact that the two communities were supposedly separated so how
could there be a road between the two?

So first we came to Shankill Road (SHANKL), where I took
a waypoint but didn't go up as we were desperately short of
time, as we had hoped to catch the 15:00 bus and it was
already 15:07!  Also it looked pretty seedy and all eyes were
on us.  There were some murals as we walked down, and one bit
of grafitti I thought was cute - "Irish out of Britain -
25 years, time to go"!  We then found out what the Peace Line
consisted of, a huge metal gate currently open for cars, but
the pedestrian access was locked, so we walked on the road.
There was also barbed wire to separate the two.

After we came out on the other side we came across another
road, I saw the name, Divis St, but it wasn't the right one.
That's because I was looking the wrong way, the start of
Falls Road was on my right.  There was also a magnficent
church nearby, St Peter's Cathedral, but there was no time to
stop.  I took a waypoint (FALLRD) which was where I was when
I realised I'd just missed Falls Road and just passed the
church near there!

It was now 15:11 and I realised we were theoretically still
in with a chance to get the 15:30 bus (they are every half
hour).  That would be really great as we didn't know how
long it took to get to the airport.  I had my waypoint, and
I could actually see the Europa Hotel.  But what was now looming
large was a huge barrier at the end of the street, which was a
huge train track or river or something, either way impassable.
I asked a bystander how to get to the Europa Hotel and he
directed me down some dirt track he reckoned would take me
under and over!  Boy oh boy, the underpass was some spooky
place, full of rubbish and old bikes etc.  It's like they have
battles there to see which gang can get to the other side.
Luckily there was no-one there and we were soon on the other
side, madly following the GPS.  We passed what looked like a
heavily fortified RUC station too.

My wife wanted to go one direction, because she was trying to
get to the place she knew, but I told her I knew where I was
going, and proceeded up the bus route into the rear entrance
of the shelter.  We arrived bang on time, paid the bus driver
(another thing I'd found out earlier from the sign) 10 GBP,
careful to use up our 5 GBP Irish notes which we didn't want
English shops to question us about.  If there was ever any time
the benefits of GPS needed to be seen to be believed, this
was it!  A couple of minutes later the bus took off.  We
weren't out of danger yet, as we still didn't know how long
it took too get to the airport!

I don't know how everyone else knew, or indeed would take the
risk, but there was another stop in the middle of the city
(AIR1), where most of the passengers boarded.  But that was the
last stop in Belfast - there was another place where it stopped
(AIR2) but that was in the middle of nowhere.  So then we were
on the motorway and we were home free!  Well, on our way home
anyway.  Well actually despite being on the motorway the bus
was getting slower and slower.  My GPS was still on so I could
tell what speed we were doing, and it wasn't looking good!  I
clocked it at 29km/h at it's lowest!

By this stage I was looking around to see if anyone else looked
worried, or whether the driver was looking around worried,
about to announce anything, call in for help, try something
different, like maybe put his foot on the accelerator instead
of the brake, but no, there was not a single person in the least
bit perturbed about everyone overtaking us at over 3 times our
speed on a motorway.  In front of me was an old man who had
fallen asleep during the process.  To my right was an old woman
who looked like any speed-processing marbles she had ever had
had since turned in to McDonald's gravy.  At this rate we'd be
lucky if we arrived at the airport by dawn the next day.

At some point the driver must have woken up, and decided he'd
use that magic right pedal and at one stage we approached 70%
the speed of the speed limit.  No explanation though, he knew
that the passengers either didn't know or didn't care where
they were going, the only people who cared were tourists, and
they wouldn't be travelling again anyway, so who cares.  The
bus stopped frighteningly close to my airport waypoint, about
20 metres off, so we were back on GPS-covered ground.  We were
frisked on our way in, and it turned out that you're not allowed
to take semtex into England after all, even if it is for a good
cause (well, the guy told me that it was in the name of freedom
and justice, and surely there can't be any harm in that guvner?).

We had been told that the plane was very full and thus couldn't
sit together.  We were actually given the same row, but I was
in seat "C" whilst my wife was in seat "A".  In other words,
not only was the plane so full that there wasn't 2 seats
together, but they had already allocated seat B to a single
person, right smack in the middle of a set of 3.  I decided to
sit in B myself and negotiate with the rightful owner as to
whether he really wanted to sit between us or whether he would
prefer either the aisle or a window seat.  In the end the
rightful owner never turned up, and even if he had, we would
have moved to the block of about 7 empty rows we could see in
front of us.  Now that's what I call an over-paranoid seating
clerk.

So in hindsight what would I have done differently?  Well in
hindsight I would have GPS locations for the destinations, and
saved 1-3 hours of stuffing around time.  Nor would I have
underestimated the travelling time, and given the hotel a later
arrival time.  This would have allowed me to get to Eniskillen,
although I still don't know what's so special about that.  I
would have taken a towel to the hostel.  I would have filled up
with petol outside Belfast, it was slightly cheaper.  I would
have made sure the car rental was booked for Airport pickup,
City return in the first place.  I would have allowed more time
for Falls and Shankill Roads, and insisted on less time for
shopping.  Also, I would seriously consider doing Stormont
first, or perhaps make sure the second day was a weekday so
perhaps it wasn't restricted.  Oh, and I wouldn't accept
semtex from people with an Irish accent again, no matter how
friendly the Irish are!


(NOTE - I have been informed that LOL means Loyal Orange Lodge)