Fred & Julia: Belfast and Northern Ireland, and a wee bit of the south

So after a lovely weekend in the south of england where we managed to meet up with David and Dorothy Davies and Dorothy Bray, we hopped on a budget flight to Dublin.

Fred took ages getting a rental car, but when he arrived back Julia was pleased to see that he had got keys for an Audi! Fred said it was an R8, but turns out it's only a nice new A1.

Straight up to Belfast where we did a black cab tour starting about 9pm. It was your mans first time at doing a tour so late, so he was a wee bit spooked. So it started in the shankill area (English) and drove by the peace wall and through the gates into the falls area(Irish). Our driver was catholic, so he was notably more relaxed for the second half of the tour and was definitely a little one sided about who did what to who during the "troubles"
Here's a few pics of the murals on the houses, starting with the English side

Then the peace wall between the two sides, to "stop dem trowing tings at each udda."

Then the Irish side

This is the old court house from where a lot of the lads got sent to Australia from.

Had a quick look around the titanic quarter of the docks etc, and at the huge cranes they still have there. No boring picture for you sorry.

Then we headed off north west for a drive through the country to get to omagh. Stopped at a lovely house for tea and scones, but then lucky for Julia the rain came in so we couldn't do a walk around the gardens and out to the tower.

Had a great time with John and Carol Doak, and melvin (6) and ryan (3). Had a look at the farm and yards etc, they were busy trying to cut silage in between rain showers.

Then on again back to the south of Ireland, to a place in the middle called Athlone, where Fred's cousin Nicola and Mervyn Auchmuty live. So the afternoons activity involved using the JCB to take the boat across the fields down to the lake, and a bit of waterskiing, in between rain showers. Great fun. This is their view out over the lake.

Mervyn and their daughter Abby

Today we went to a high ropes course place in a forest near lough kee. Was great fun zooming around in the tree tops, and climbing about like monkeys.
Fred with his cousin Clinton.