Trains and|to N Ireland
Aug. 17th, 2009 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Things that I am forced to observe about the non-flying non-car option of getting from London to Belfast:
- your options are to go via Dublin, or to pay >5 times as much and have even worse timing (the Liverpool-Belfast ferry isn't part of the Rail/Sail cheap ticket deal).
- apparently Stena don't think that bikes are vehicles so Liverpool-Larne isn't an option even if cycling (which we weren't this time). Although I may contact them to discuss this.[1]
- it shouldn't take this long. 13 hrs on the way there (the main possible reduction: better linkup with the Euston-Holyhead train. You shouldn't need to leave Euston at 20:00 for a 02:40 ferry; 22:30 would be more like it. Better linkup at Dublin to the Belfast train would be nice as well but that was only 40 min).
- it really, really shouldn't take this long on the way back. Why no overnight train from Holyhead to Euston? (also, again, poor linkup between Belfast-Dublin train and ferry).
- it is v good value, though - £40 pp each way London-Belfast all in.
- the ferry has lovely squashy sofas to sleep on.
- do not eat the potato wedges available at Dublin Connolly station, under any circumstances. Pure evil.
However! We got to doop's parents' house in the end, and had a really lovely weekend. They live out near the coast, with a fabulous view over to the Mull of Kintyre, and we went for a couple of very enjoyable walks which involved scrambling over rocks and looking at seaweed and (in my case) standing in a big muddy puddle, whoops. The predicted horrible weather lifted after Friday, so you could see all the way across the sea to Scotland which I found v exciting, especially when I spotted Hadyard Hill wind farm. Also we slept a lot. And doop's family are great.
Today I intended to be largely quite lazy, but the to-do list is filling up regardless. How does this happen?
[0] After about 40 min I went in search of insulation, and came back with a pile of free papers. "I feel like a homeless person"
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[1] Vehicle-only ferries = "we have no method in place to get people onto the ferry on foot". If cycling you ride on along with the cars/lorries/motorbikes, so this shouldn't be a problem. I suspect it is FAIL on the part of their website.