Monday 5 March 2018

Is it safe?

I'm wondering if it is even safe to head into the North, with a fellow from the Republic, let alone try to plan days out with him. Maybe I should just smuggle him into our hotel and leave it at that? Nobody seemed to mind last time though.

So, I've been having a look at things we can do on the non race days and I've come up with a few ideas.

I definitely have us down for a trip around the east/north Antrim coast. Maybe this time I'll take it a little slower though and look at the scenery. Back in 2012 I remember being delighted to have such a fantastic piece of road to ride and took off on my own, stopping every so often to let the 'uprighters' catch up. Bikes are meant to be leant into bends! But that's another story, so I'll say no more.

As we are in this part of the world to watch road racing and with Ballymoney only 10 miles from our hotel, it would be plain wrong NOT to pay a visit to the Joey & Robert Dunlop Memorial gardens, so that's another thing on the to do list, maybe with a visit to Joey's Bar too, to toast their memory. I expect it gets quite busy at North West time though, with biking pilgrims.

I've looked at going into Belfast to the Titanic exhibition but I think that could be a lot of walking and reading, plus it's quite expensive. There's also the feeling that that is something I could come back and do with Catherine, as she's a massive Titanic fan, if fan is the right word.

What has caught my eye though, to the west, is Derry or Londonderry. My only knowledge of the place is from the news back in the day, during the troubles but I have discovered it is an ancient walled city, with the walls still intact and is a place steeped in history, not just from the late 60's onwards. It sounds interesting and I'm quite fancying a guided walk. Now walking isn't high on Grizzly's list of must dos but I may be able to bargain with him, coz I know he loves murals and there are quite a number of fairly famous ones for him to line up in his viewfinder. We'll see. It won't be much fun doing either if the weather's bad.

One other thing I fancy doing, is riding the Ulster Grand Prix course. I can already here Grizzly, "you sad bastard Woody". It's not far from the outskirts of Belfast, so probably not worth a special ride down but I might be able to build it into the Antrim coast road ride somehow.

If anyone has any suggestions of things to do, I'm open to them. For now though, that's it. I've got a few things to sort out over the next 60 odd days, so I'd best crack on.


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