Touring Ireland

 

My tour guiding course continues, this time with a trip down the Ards Peninsula and to Mount Stewart (above). We had a tour of the house, home to Lord and Lady Londonderry for many years and now owned by the national trust.  

The head gardener also gave us a tour of the amazing garden and I saw giant shamrock, the likes of which I've never seen before.

 

I also did my first ever paid tour recently - a one hour coach tour of Belfast - in Spanish! It took a lot of preparation and not a little help from my mother but I got through it without any major disasters and am really quite proud of myself. The tour ended at the new Titanic Belfast museum, below.

adventures with a bell tent

 

 

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A full seven months after buying my beautious bell tent, Danny and I finally got a weekend with decent enough weather to get out and use it. We went to Tullymore Forest Park in Newcastle, Co.Down and got a spot with a view over the forest and the tallest mountain in Ulster - Slieve Donard.

 

Bell tents are pretty easy to erect because the central pole does most of the work of holding the tent up, and I brought lots of throws, thai cushions and a proper feather duvet and pillows to make things comfy.

It's not quite the sumptuous game-of-thrones style tent I've been planning but it's halfway there and there's another camping trip planned with friends for the summer solstice. And next time I'm bringing board games, nights in a tent with no entertainment can be very long!