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Mini Clan Northern Ireland Tour30th August - 1st September 2002
All Photos below available in higher quality versions.
Please contact me to ask for them!
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![]() Rob, Graham, Judith, Mark and Alex grinning on the Seacat before things got choppy! |
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![]() Neil and Roger hanging on! |
![]() Looking a bit greener and damper now! |
![]() 4 water jets driving the Seacat Scotland Catamaran at 35 knots (40mph) |
![]() This photo taken while I tried to stop myself sliding/falling overboard on very choppy sea! |
![]() Euan looking a bit green around the gills. |
![]() Land ahoy ... much to Euan's relief. |
After docking, we headed through Belfast North towards our hostel in Bushmills on now dark, wet Northern Irish roads. Managing to stay together, and getting lots of enthusiastic attention on the road with stops for food and petrol we arrived at our Hostel at around 10:30pm. Managing to get 24 people into rooms taking of 2,3 or 4 people was interesting but achieved in the end! A brief search for an open pub was conducted but they all seemed to be "lock ins" - i.e. they had people in them but no-one could enter... strange!
Thanks to John Smith and Roger though much-needed refreshments were available in the foyer of the Hostel until nearly midnight when Keith called to say he'd tracked down an open pub - we all dashed off up the road, dodging the soldiers with machine guns (!) before entering the pub - which was someone's house complete with front door with door bell! Here I discovered Bushmills whisky... well I discovered 4 or 5 actually... before we all staggered back to the Hostel at about 2.
Saturday 31st August - Excellent
help-yourself Breakfast in the Hostel was followed by a trip to the nearby
Giant's Causeway.
£5 per Mini, with no discount possible, made us all grumble a bit considering it
was a natural attraction and not man made (so they say!). Considering that
a week earlier a family had been washed off the causeway by a freak wave (a
regular occurance apparently) I was doing quite well not to stress about
everyone messing about at the edge... but in some of these photos they resemble
Lemmings or something! Very impressive though.
After
the Causeway we headed along the stunning coastal road towards the famous
Carrick-A-Rede rope
bridge. Spanning a chasm with a drop of 80ft, this is not for the feint
hearted! Traditionally used to allow fisherman access to the island to
catch Salmon, it is now mainly a tourist attraction.
We then had lunch in a local hotel, which seemed well able to cope with a sudden influx of hungry Mini Clanners before heading to Dunluce castle which for 75p was by far our bargain of the day! An amazing ruined castle with a stunning sea-cave below which they used to use for their boats... can't imagine how! I left my camera in the car, so no photos of this, sorry! We then headed to Bushmills Distillery and raided the shop just before closing.
After a brief rest in the Hostel, and changing into our event T-shirts (artwork by Judith B, printing by Keith Rogerson), we headed back to the distillery for the start of the Mini events - the "Dash of the O'Irish" run. This was an amazing run including a theme of rescuing nelly and some ice cream (I think). The machine guns firing blanks at our cars were a bit OTT, in my opinion, after coming across live machine guns for the first time in my life the night before... but other than that the run was a riot.
The police had closed many roads for us including Bushmills, PortStewart and PortRush and we got tons and tons of attention - people waving and flashing their lights, kids running alongside - the works. It was also a beautiful night. A gter the run we headed back to the Hostel to fish-suppers, previously purchased refreshments, and a party atmosphere prevailed until after 2am - great fun! Neil lit a fire in the Hostel using the hugely inflammable coal provided, even though it wasn't particularly cold, which meant we all ended up at the far side of the room to get away from the heat! We all were introduced to "Helga", and a we married John off to a Hen (on her hen night).
Sunday 1st September 2002
... story to be continued ... watch this space
My camera ran out of photos at this point missing out some last fun events!!! For more please see www.miniclan.com or email me.
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