Kanga And Wombats Adventures

Day 23

It was SO hard to say goodbye to Irene and Walter. We had really clicked and felt we were saying goodbye to our family. Such gentle, genuine and generous people. Walter even gave us some pens, all different, that he’d hand-turned, a hobby originating from his trade as a chippy.

We had the whole day to get back to Dublin. You can drive it in less than 2 hours along the motorway. We took 7 hours! We continued our tactic of driving along the coast. Very pretty, very flat.

We took our time motoring down the Ards Peninsula to Portaferry where we were the last car to board! Talk about timing! The view crossing Strangford Lough was idyllic.

Intending to follow the coast all the way to Newry then hook onto the motorway, John as navigator for the day, discovered we could take another car ferry across Carlingford Lough. Googling the timetable, we discovered the ferry only went every hour. We had 15 minutes and 14 kms to go. The race was on! As the Sydney Swans are apt to do, we started to duck, weave, put the foot on the throttle along the narrow lanes, taking uncharacteristic chances overtaking slow drivers in VW Golf cars (never in Australia!).

Feckin’ tractors!

We turned the corner before the ferry departure point 3 minutes late. Miraculously it was still there, but the gates were closed. A horn toot to gain attention did the trick, and we were on!

That’s our Niamh, lucky last again! The Loughs had been conquered!

It was onto the motorway and onwards to Dublin, via Drogheda and the Battle of the Boyne site. Drogheda was where 3000 ‘papists’ were murdered by Oliver Cromwell’s troops in 1649, as punishment for siding with the Catholic Charles 1 in the Civil War.

Literally 5kms away, is the Battle of the Boyne site.

In 1690, more than 60,000 soldiers of the armies of James 11 and William 111 (who were fighting to consolidate their claim to the English throne), fought on this patch of farm land beside the pretty Boyne River. William prevailed and James fled to France. The museum wasn’t quite as high tech as we had experienced yesterday, but they were very insistent we didn’t miss the laser show.

And the lavender garden was very pretty.