The Last Day

 This morning we went to the Botanical Gardens close to Queens University, we arrived before some of the indoor displays were open and even after they were in truth they were disappointing as the hot houses were in shabby condition and quite a few of the plants/shrubs appeared to be in poor condition with quantities of dead leaves throughout.

Perhaps the highlight was watching a squirrel climbing multiple trees and lying splayed on a branch.

Flagging that we crossed the road to a cafe but on entering there was a sign “cash only” and we didn’t have any so we flagged that and drove to a retail park on the outskirts of the city to find that illusive coffee.

Commonsense would dictate to drive into the city centre instead of the outskirts of the city but starting this morning there is the biggest festival of Irish music and culture being held in the city with multiple road closures and diversions and unfortunately someone had forgotten to code our GPS with those closures and diversions so we took the more sensible option and stayed outside the centre.

This afternoon as we returned to Belfast following our lunch date from the motorway we saw a large carpark adjacent to the O2 so we pulled off the motorway and parked up in the hope of hearing some of the advertised music.

There were plenty of people moving around but apart from hearing a young girl playing the violin we didn’t get to an area with the Irish music so a coffee in the O2 and then back to the car and we were away home - so the day was topped and tailed by “disappointment”.

However the middle of the day made up for it as we made the 75km drive to Cookstown to met and have lunch with Janet’s parents, Joe and Muriel who we had never met but whom we knew quite well from conversations with Janet.

We had an enjoyable hour and a half in their company discussing life in both countries and perhaps giving them reassurance that all is ok with their daughter.

Today was our last full day in Ireland as tomorrow morning we drive to Dublin to get a flight to London and in the evening another to Singapore arriving there about 9pm NZT on Tuesday.

We have thoroughly enjoyed Ireland, the people are super friendly, the cities are vibrant, the scenery is stunning particularly around the coast, the food is fattening with the cream and butter used (not helped by the quantity of Guinness consumed) and luckily the weather was not traditional Irish.

We have some great memories to look back on and thankfully these posts will refresh a lot of them for us.