A jaunt to Ireland for us this summer, rather than mainland Europe in a bid to save some wedge, ha!

I booked us on with Stena Line, after our very pleasant crossing to Nederlands at Easter.  We were due to head out from Holyhead to Dublin, on a 9am crossing arriving 12.15, no cabins or extras this time, except for a brekkie pre-paid in the restaurant,  and lunches pre-booked for the return leg  550 quid return. It’s high season in August so I suppose that’s the price you pay…

In my usual style, I booked the crossings months in advance, checked the map, googled rough driving times, made a plan for where to go, researched campsites and then did bugger all about actually booking and paying for any of it.

My plan was for us to leave home the evening prior to the crossing and stay at Llanfair Bach camping 5 earth minutes from the ferry terminal, but when I realised we were unlikely to get there before about 9pm and would need to be out by 7am I changed my mind.  I saw there was a truck stop car park, which I decided on, but then Storm Floris happened and there were weather warnings right up to the midnight before we sailed.

We decided we’d have a curtailed sleep in our own beds and drive straight through leaving before the crack of dawn and indeed before the crows 💩💩

It was a bit mork and mindy over the Pennines, but it was all plain sailing, including a quick stop for hash browns in Chester and we arrived at the port with ages to spare.  No messing about with passports or booking info, just waved straight into a queue and on the boat by 20 past 8, breakfast in our actual gobs before we left the berth.

We were on the Stena Estrid, not as big as the boat we took at Easter, but similar in facilities.  We found ourselves a big table with bench seating for easy napping and got our breakfast grills, which were ok, but nothing special and alternately napped and explored the duty free options.

I’d googled shopping opportunities in Dublin to get supplies, but we weren’t desperate for groceries so we headed off out of Dublin and towards the coast, hoping for a nice picnic lunch and a stroll on the sand before getting to our first campsite.

Plans were thwarted by poor googling skills – the car park I had chosen had a ruddy height barrier, so we parked by the roadside as it wasn’t busy, and made butties anyway.  When I looked back at the street view, the height barrier was so rusty it blended into the background, I should have looked closer!

First stop was Tollymore Forest Park Campsite.  £81 for 3 nights on hard standing including EHU, which makes it 27 quid per night.

Driving into the park was impressive, with a beautiful tree-lined avenue, and the little mester at the pay booth let us past and told us to park anywhere that was free. It’s a one-way system and not obvious as the exit is on the main road and the entrance is down a side street: ///tearfully.encodes.flinches

Mother would be underwhelmed at the state of the facilities, very dated, I would call it municipal shabby, seen better days and only borderline clean, but plenty of them and the showers were powerful and hot, (and not on a push button!).

We took a quiet day on site after a very long sleep, and walked a couple of the forest trails.  First a quick trot around the Arboretum (less than 1km) and then 5km round the river trail loop, taking in such delights as the Hermitage, the Stepping Stones and various bridges over the Spinkwee river.  The nature was beautiful, the boy’s constant whining of “how much further?” much less so.

We took a drive out to Strangford Lough for lunch on Sketrick Island at Daft Eddy’s – a place I’d seen on Brit Stops.  The drive out was lovely and crossing the little bridge to the island ramped up the anticipation.  We arrived almost bang on 12 and did well as we didn’t have a reservation and they filled up really quick. Location is ///dispensed.sobered.types

I’m not sure I’d want to spend the night in their car park as it was very sloping and very full.  We had a right job manoeuvring out after all the millions of other cars squeezed in every available spot.  6.4 metres of heft with tight angles makes you sweat a bit, especially on a full stomach.

The food was good, as was the wine, the view from the terrace was lovely, but no oportunities for strolling as most of the island is private, so we made like shepherds.

There were some disconcerting myopic animals in the John for entertainment, and we paid £124.40 for 4 main courses, 3 desserts, 2 pints of Guinness, 2 cokes and 1 glass of wine.

We decided to head back to camp for a quiet afternoon via the Asda at Downpatrick which cost us £66 for 2 measly bags of shopping and made pitta bread pizzas in the Cadac for tea on our last night before moving on.

Next stop the far north – the Giants Causeway and the Bushmills Old Distillery!