Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 8 - Planes, Trains & Funiculars

We commenced our decent into Newcastle just before 10.00am and were reunited with one of my oldest and dearest friends in the arrivals hall just 40 minutes later.  Lin and I have been great mates since 1978 when we met on the bus between LAX and downtown LA.  I chatted to Lin and her travel companion Linda then wished them both well and then reluctantly headed off to buy a map of LA from a nearby vending machine.  Remember paper maps?  Two came out of the slot instead of just the one my 75c entitled me to so I chased after the Lindas to give them one and thus was born The Fellowship of the Two Maps.  This has since come to embrace scores of others and tens of thousands kilometres of directly related travel over the last 42 years.

John & Lin

It’s three years since Peter and I last saw Lin and being with her once again has been nothing short of wonderful, but wait, there’s more - and I’m not talking about steak knives because she’s been a vegetarian for longer than we’ve known one another! 

When Lin retired almost two years ago she started doing U3A courses and along came John.  We have spoken on the phone and even emailed one another so I knew I was going to like the man and of course I did.  John and Lin crossed paths in their younger days without ever actually meeting and John even worked in Hornsby when he lived in Sydney many years ago so the entanglement of connections is both deep and almost eerie.  But best of all this man has made my friend very happy so he is, forever, my friend as well.

Day 1 in the North-East was all about catching up but Day 2 saw us out and about and back to one of my very favourite places, Beamish - The Living Outdoor Museum of the North.  It quite literally is a living outdoor museum of all things Northern from the 1820s to the newly opened 1950s expansion.  They have transported and reconstructed everything from shuggy boats to entire buildings from all over Northern England and connected them with tramways, railways and roads with horse drawn vehicles, steam tractors and vintage buses and cars.  All those wonders aside, my favourite remains the 1940s village with the Victory Farm and heritage chooks that wandering freely about.  We fell in love with Molly the pig on our last visit and although she’s since moved on (hopefully in a good way) Myrtle is almost as gorgeous and liked Peter just as much.

Myrtle & Peter

Next day we were off on a train journey to the seaside like in my infants’ school reader only different.  Oh how I enjoyed Open Road to Reading!  We boarded the train at Bishop Auckland which was within walking distance of Lin’s house in a fitter existence.  We drove though.  It’s a lovely hour and a half ride through the North Yorkshire countryside, only an hour if you drive but that would be no fun, especially on the motorway.

Saltburn-by-the-Sea ticked a number of my boxes.  First up there’s the “by-the-sea” business in its name then there was the train ride.  Add to that the seaside cliffs which are signature to that part of the east coast and the Victorian funicular that transports you down to the equally Victorian pier at the foot of the cliff and what a day we had!

Saltburn-on-the-Sea funicular and pier

Next day we were off to the nearby Head of Steam - Darlington Railway Museum which is located in North Road Station on the 1825 route of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the world's first steam-worked public railway.  It also houses George and Robert Stephenson Locomotion No 1 and that’s just a bit special!  We rode behind the replica at Beamish just two days earlier.

Locomotion No 1

A lovely picnic lunch in the park was followed by another rail experience at the iconic Locomotion Museum a little back along the road at Shildon.  Locomotion is part of the continuum of national science museums, a little like Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum only much more extensive and without the constant threat of relocation.  This is where railways began and it’s packed to the rafters with the genuine items so I was like a pig in muck!

A fraction of what's on offer at the Locomotion Museum

Lovin’ the North!

Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 7 - Northern Ireland & More of Dublin

Our final day of the rail tour left from Connolly Station in the busier part of Dublin.  Connolly serves the lines to the north whereas trains leave Heuston for the south and west of Ireland.  This all dates back to the private rail companies that built the lines in the mid-1800s.  That’s why London has almost as many terminals as it does tube stations.

We headed north along the coast for much of the trip which was just lovely.  As always, I requested seats on the right side of the train to favour Peter’s good eye.  Remember that if you’re ever heading north out of Dublin; left side if you’re headed in.  

The Causeway Coastal Route - Antrim Coast

We really should have planned a few days either side of our rail tour, that way we could have spent time exploring Dublin before we set off and then finished with a day of two in Belfast before flying onward from there.  As it was we were met by a coach at Belfast Central and whisked straight off to the Causeway Coastal Route, along Northern Ireland’s Antrim Coast without so much of a mention of The Troubles but much ado about two flogging big cranes on the Belfast docks.  Who will ever forget Sampson and Goliath?

Old Stan was quite beside himself at the sight though.  He might have retired to the Garden City of Toowoomba but he still loves a dockyard and before we knew it he had a clenched fist in the air and was singing the Internationale.  This was more about Fred and Wilma than anything else, especially Stan’s singing ability, but Adela managed to settle him down after a couple of stanzas.  Fred and Wilma were clueless so no harm done.

Having cleared Belfast the coast was a treat.  We passed through a series of fishing villages with stunning views of the Irish Sea to the right and the mountains or the Glens of Antrim to the left. You can even glimpse the Scottish coast on a clear day and of course a clear day it was!  It seemed only reasonable that we should see Scotland from Northern Ireland having seen Ireland from Wales.  Now we need to see Malaysia from Singapore during our stopover in the later on our way home, it’s a must-do!

We stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge which crosses to a 23m-deep and 20m-wide chasm between the mainland and Carrick-a-Rede Island.  Fishermen originally built it to check their salmon nets but now it just traps tourists.  It also makes you feel as if that allusive extra orifice that’s situated somewhere along you perineum is about to open up and evacuate the entire contents of your body before your skin turns inside-out and disappears through it as well.  I’m sure you’ve experienced the feeling at some point!

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

With all our bits and pieces tucked safely back in again it was off to Dunluce Castle for a photo stop before arriving at the Giant’s Causeway for two hours of clambering about.  Now that I’ve seen tessellated basalt columns in Tasmania, Iceland and Ireland I reckon I’m pretty much up to pace on the subject but I’m always interested to hear a bit more about geology as well as a legend or two.

Our guide for the day was extremely knowledgeable and remarkably polite.  Her mere mention of a geological age of 50-60 million years sent Wilma’s creationist nostrils flaring and Fred was none-too-impressed about the tale of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his similarly gigantic mate Benandonner from Scotland and the barney they had somewhere along their purpose-built causeway.  “Demons!” he shouted, “Demons!”  We all moved on though, albeit with a few muffled chuckles from Stan who reminded us that Fred had said the same about leprechauns.

The Giant's Causeway

As it happened we did manage a bit of a turn about Belfast on our way back to the station.  We spotted the odd wall or two and a good many murals which are mostly benign these days but one or two of them still indicate just what kind of tormenting bastards some protestants can be.  Leave it alone for Christ’s sake - literally!

This Belfast mural is almost certainly on the side of a protestant house

Once back to Dublin our tour came to an end.  Peter and I said a polite farewell to Fred and Wilma then went for a Guinness or three with Raewin, Cheryl, Stan and Adela to celebrate the end of our LGBTI+Communist rail tour.  We hit the Brazen Head which is the oldest pub in Ireland dating back to 1198.  They also served meals until late which was a plus.  I could have had glazed bacon and cabbage or perhaps a Clonakilty black pudding salad but I settled on the kale and quinoa burger, much as you might expect. 

Peter and I vowed to sleep in until 8 o’clock next morning and enjoy a more leisurely breakfast than usual before doing Dublin.

Dublin

Part of the deal with Railtours Ireland included a two-day pass on one of those hop-on-hop-off red bus businesses around Dublin although sadly, we only had enough time to use half of that.  Having shunned such things in London on both our first and second visits as being far too touristy we did indulged ourselves in Cambridge, Bath, Edinburgh and Glasgow across both trips given the brevity of our time in each place and found them quite informative and a good way to see a city when you’re on a tight schedule. 

That said, it appears that dozens of people were hung, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, or subjected to any and every combination of the aforementioned at every major intersection in and around Edinburgh which has rather coloured my memory of that particular city.  Glasgow, a day or two later seemed much less brutal.

It takes the best part of two hours to do the complete circuit in Dublin so given that we only had a day we remained glued to our seats on the open upper deck of the bus for the first time around whilst I ticked off prospective stopping points for the second circuit and we had a most wonderful day.  Our good friend Lin from Durham had already recommended the Guinness Storehouse Brewery near Stop 8 and having now been there I concur with her completely.  Of course my aging bladder made finding toilets from that point onward a bit of a challenge but not one which was insurmountable.  I have a thing about visiting parliaments and they had plenty there, as they must.

Dáil Éireann - Assembly of Ireland

So back to Guinness, we finished our evening at the Temple Bar then retired to our hotel to prepare for an obscenely early 9.00am flight to Newcastle on Aer Lingus.  I bet you expected me to make a joke about that!  There was a slightly later Ryan Air flight but my sciatica completely precluded standing throughout the journey, relatively short though it was.  I’m happy to reveal that even though I failed maths in the 1970 NSW HSC (math if you’re American) and have not studied it since despite two more years at high school and seven at university, even I could work out that a cheap flight plus €90 for two pieces of checked baggage is no bargain.  Then there’s the pay-for-use toilet which takes me right back to the bladder shrinkage. 

And by the way, my latest blood work showed that I have the PSA of a 27 year-old but unfortunately nothing else.  No, seriously, it’s all good too so don’t worry.  What we have here is an extraordinary example of the triumph of genetics over effort.

Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 6 - Obama's Missing Apostrophe

After another full Irish breakfast we waddled onto the bus for a turn around the Connemarra and some more truly glorious Irish countryside.  I’ve always had a bit of a thing for stone bridges and Ireland is the place to get your fill of those.  The best so far has been the beautiful Quiet Man Bridge near lough-side Oughterard. 

Quiet Man Bridge - Oughterard

Then it was off to Kylemore Abbey for a bit more lough action and one of many stunning examples of what the English did for themselves in Ireland.  The structure was built in 1868 by a London doctor, Mitchell Henry, whose family had made a motza from their Manchester textile mills.  Originally styled Kylemore Castle I was left wondering what actually constitutes a castle beyond a desire to have one.  Was Prince really a prince and what about Duke Ellington, Lady Gaga and all the others?  And then there remains the vexing question of Michael Jackson’s youngest child, Prince Michael "Blanket" Jackson II, now known as Bigi.  But as usual, I digress.

The Germans bombed the crap out of some Benedictine nuns in Ypres during WWI so they packed up and moved to London then on to Ireland where they purchased Kylemore Castle in 1920, waved their magic wimples and turned it into an abbey.  These days there are also a few restaurants and a rather lovely Victorian walled garden which is worthy of a wander.

Kylemore Abbey

I had barely finished my last seared scallop when we were whisked back onto the bus and off to… wait for it… another bog!  This time it was Derrygimlagh Bog, site of Marconi’s radio transmitter and also the crash landing of the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1919.  The aviators were actually aiming for something more appropriate but of course there weren’t any airports back in the day so a bog is better than a reek.

The memorial marking the latter is a little confusing.  At first glance I thought it was a nuclear missile silo but it’s actually the nose cone of some aircraft completely unrelated to the Vickers Vimy biplane flown by Alcock and Brown so go figure!

Derrygimlagh Bog

We had to unpack our sea legs next day for a boat trip out to Inis Mor.  It’s the largest of the three Aran Islands and I’m here to tell you it’s barren, Sharon!  If you have ancestors from that part of Ireland be grateful they left because it’s bleak and inhospitable, even on a nice day.

A quaint village aside, the major attraction on Inis Mor is the pre-Christian cliff-top fort of Dun Aonghasa which dates from 1100 BCE.  It was given a major beef-up with new technologies in around 500 BCE but Christ only knows what they were defending.  The place looks to be good for goats and not much else.  A couple of hours on Inis Mor was long enough for me.

Dun Aonghasa

We passed through Moneygall on our way back to Dublin and our guide Maureen mentioned this was where Barrack Obama went searching for his lost apostrophe, it being the birthplace of his great-great-great grandfather.  Most of us thought that interesting but not Fred and Wilma who wanted to hear nothing of it.  In fact Fred had some thoughts of his own that he decided to share, nothing new, just the usual guff about Obama being a Ugandan-born Muslim and a communist to boot.  You’ve heard it all from Trump.  I think there might have been mention of polygamy as well but Fred was drowned out at this point.

Michelle & Barack Obama in Moneygall

Stan from Toowoomba was up on his 85 year-old feet and straight into him.  Stan had been a wharfie on the Brisbane docks for 45 years and union rep for 35 as well as a proud card-carrying member of the original Australian Communist Party until it was dissolved in 1991.  He told Fred that he wouldn’t know a communist if one bit him on the fucken arse and then removed his dentures and waved them about in a rather threatening manner, offering to do the honours himself.

That’s where Stan’s daughter Adela stepped in and brought things under control, I suspect not for the first time.  Adela, it transpired, had been named for Adela Pankhurst, daughter of Emily and co-founder of the Australian Communist Party.  She had been Stan’s travelling companion and handler since her mother died a few years earlier and did pretty good job of keeping him in line.  But Stan already had a gutful of Fred and his MAGA cap so was ready to blow.  Best it happen as it did when there was nothing sharp or heavy at hand.