A little bit more of Yorkshire

A whistle stop day trip (though 200 miles +) around the East Coast of Yorkshire in photo form, from Sutton Hill to Scarborough and on to Spurn Point, all from a week last Saturday but better late than never... which is still the plan for posts about our wedding last year and our honeymoon too... I will get around to it sometime soon, even if its just a photo post... like this one :)

An hour or so into the ride and my dad had us to Sutton Bank, we were looking for the car park nearest the vantage point and ended up climbing the hill, driving back down the hill then up the hill again. Not an easy feat given the hill is closed to large vehicles due to its steep and windy incline. It was worth it though as the panoramic view was pretty picturesque.

A while later we landed in Scarborough and my dad and I headed to the Castle and as you can tell I liked to take photos in and around it. The audio tour was pretty nifty too, it added a lot to the walk around the headland, stories of times gone by and explanations of why there were big bits missing from meter thick stone walls.

After a ride down the front and a fridge magnet later it was on to Bridlington, home of many childhood memories but this time, filled with a ride on the waltzers and some close encounters of the bird kind.

We then made the short journey back up the coast to Flamborough Head to have a look at the lighthouse and whimp out of the walk down to the cliffs. Time as you can imagine was getting on by now, yes, that shall be our excuse!

When we got going again it was to visit Hornsea but we didn't stay long, we spent almost as long staring at the wind farm on the road to Spurn Point.

And Spurn or Spurn Point or Spurn Head was where we made it to next. Formed by longshore drift depositing bits of the cliffs we saw earlier its quite a sight. Though a bit of a bird watchers paradise, we were more intrigued by being able to see the sea on either side of the road and having a paddle. It is certainly a sight of natural beauty even with the use as a lifeboat station and the heavy shipping passing by. Despite all that it is quite a tranquil place.

The sun was starting to dip beyond Hull so we made tracks and not just in the sand blowing over the road. We had made it to the Humber Bridge just before sunset and £2.70 paid to one of the people in the toll booths and we were zipping over the 2km+ stretch of water 100ft in the air.

From the Humber Bridge we drove off into the sunset through North Lincolnshire, cut a corner of South Yorkshire and back to the early night in West Yorkshire where some fresh water to wash the sand from our feet awaited us.

Back in the Future and a lot of photos

Hi everyone and sorry for the bloggy absence. You might be happy to hear that I haven't had to be put on strong medication to get over the anti climax that was this years world cup but that does lead to the question of why this page has been bare.

To be honest I just haven't got around to it but after two summers of possible mutterings it does seem the summer months of are a bit of a blogging desert for me and July just fell off the calendar completely this time around. Maybe its because I'm a night owl and my brain doesn't wake up until its been dark outside for a few hours on an evening? I dunno, nor does it much matter... but I do know that there is no point dwelling on the past for too long... so I'll keep this a snappy before (all being well) normal ramblings will resume.

So here is quick summary of the last 2 months where every day (except one) was a work day. Because of that, we have been making the most of the weekends:

Once weekend we went on a trip to the Ulster folk and transport museums and very good they were too:

Above is a train in the Transport Museum

And here is the one of the 3 churches in the Folk Museum which is a village where you can walk around almost every building - including playing the piano in the silent movie theatre!

Another weekend we ambled our way with friends and family across the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge

The Rope Bridge and the views from the walk to the bridge and the island were quite a sight as always.

On the same day this was closely followed by a visit to the Giants Causeway

More recently, Crusaders pre season friendlies kept us busy, followed by the Irish Premier League restarting with the Crues back in action:

Other weeks saw plenty of housework done which included the weather finally sparing two dry days which allowed us to cut the lawn prior to the landlords house inspection. Normally cutting the grass has no rewards but on this occasion I got to see a young beetle that had some great colour:

And as well as other events such as Birthdays, the odd trip to the cinema and sticking up mirrors with command strips and various other random events of note, we have started to go on some weekend walks.

These have been quite random walks so far. One up the toe path from Giants park up to Hazelbank and back home (6.7 miles), the other from town, up through the harbour, and around the back of the airport to Ikea (5.8 miles). On the latter trip, we found the RSPB Belfast Lough harbour lagoon and the bird hides there which are open to the public:

Our walks have had a purpose too, we had a rude awakening as to how long you might be on your feet when making the most of a city stay with our day and a 1/2 in Paris in March 2009... so this time we're going prepared with our 'endurance practice for couch potatoes'. Our final walk before going on our holiday will involve visiting charity shops around Belfast and buying an item, this item will then be delivered to a special recipient - the aim is to get the most bemused reaction.

That is pretty much the highlights of the past couple of months but the next few months have plenty for me to get back in the blogging spirit with. I'll be sure to share them with you as the nights get shorter :)

Exploring the Cavehill and Cavehill Country Park - Part 2

After a long walk and a picnic with a view, which is where we left off after part 1.  I was left with the question of how to find my way down the Cavehill. Jumping seemed the quickest way, but I fancied staying alive and wasn't in any rush.

The day was still young but my legs were tired. I wanted to see as much as I could. So I decided to head North and then once I've seen what there is to see, cut back on myself and take in the rest of the country park.

With my right ankle already aching, I was wondering how it might hold out. Looking out over the moor and with a pretty view out to sea still in my eye line, my heart ruled my head and I set off for as long as it was going to take.

Here is the view I found looking towards Mallusk, Glengormley, Carnmoney and the rest of Newtownabbey.

Distracted and with my head in the clouds as usual (though this time almost literally), I was soon heading downhill, but perhaps a little too quickly. It dawned on me just in time, well, just in time to prevent another uphill struggle. I turned around promptly and hiked back past McArts Fort and this time headed South.

Parts of the city that were out of sight before were now in view and up on the hill behind the moorland was the not so scenic view of landfill machinery.

Where the North Side of the hill was battered by a relentless wind, the South side was calmer, the upland heath turned to flowering bushes and the trees stopped looking like the heads of models from those odd looking generic styling gel adverts.

The path was a steady decline which headed West as the path takes you around the site of an quarry.

The Limestone quarry on the south face of the Cave Hill was in operation between the 1840 and 1862, closing 8 years before Belfast Castle was built. Many of you may have heard of the Limestone Road in North Belfast, well this road was named after the route of the horse drawn gravity railway that took the limestone to the port from the quarry.

148 years later and the area has been populated with a variety of flora and fauna. Seemingly sheltered here by the hills and also south facing so bathed in what sun Belfast does see, it was quite a sight. A lovely place to take a walk. A tight and uneven path meanders through an almost wilderness of flowering bushes. The quarry sides were a patchwork of plants. Bees and song birds combined with the tranquil sound of running water provided by a small brook to provide a natural soundtrack to the walk.

I could have stayed there a lot longer than I did but with my ankle feeling a little weak on the uneven terrain and not wanting to tempt the bee's into making me move on by force, I kept a brisk pace.

I never knew this place existed and it almost was like walking into wonderland. After the end of the Quarry faded away behind the flowers, the flowers in turn turned back into the sort of woodland found on the East slope around the castle. The ferns and bluebells were everywhere under the towering trees above.

I didn't have far to go now and as I popped out on to the path close to the car park, I felt slightly sad to only have pavement, cars and well mown grass to look at.

The trip back towards the Shore Road was downhill but it still took a lot longer to walk. Almost out of energy at this point, I only just had enough left in me to notice two more things. One was that houses in the area had far too many intercom systems. I mean how does the postman deliver the mail to those places without taking a week to make it down the street? The other was the remains of a pigeon being fought over by a crow and a seagull - the gull won if you were wondering.

These sightings were a little random but it didn't matter, I was tired but happy having done something fun that I'd wanted to do since the day I first saw the Cavehill. I had a small sense of satisfaction and some good memories too. All in all a great morning and apart from the slightly unsafe aspect of the trip, one I'd recommend anyone who can, to go ahead and experience too.

Beautiful Birds in Belfast

Birds everywhere! Big ones, little ones, noisy ones, stalking ones, more stalking ones - just swarms of them circling Belfast and noming up the mess they find. Anything edible looking which has found itself on the floor and that is anywhere near a beak-sized snack is set upon. Whether it’s a putrid gloop of chunky sick only hours free of its stomach confines, or whether it’s a fresh sandwich making its first and last appearance on the streets as white trash, it’s all fair game. Others Birds it seems have found it more their liking to hang in a metal bird’s flight path - in the haven of Victoria Park. Sensible birds those ones. Its hard-paved loving bird brains that I’ve been keeping my eye on though, which is a shame because those I found at Victoria Park a couple of weeks back seemed to be having fun. One likely looking character was playing hide and seek with his Geesey looking friends but I don’t think he’d thought it through too well...

As you probably read a few posts ago, I was having run ins with Pigeons and losing my numerous games of dare with them... yes they do know they’re playing because they let on with a victory dance where they nod their heads back and forth, crick their neck until they’re slightly leaning into the light and blink at you with a glint in their eye! So as you can probably tell, our street occupying feathery friends aren’t really my cup of tea when it comes to creatures of the animal kingdom... they manage to plop in those well before I get to drink them and in all honesty that’s not the cup of tea I would like to drink!

The sight that I never really noticed until today was that like buses going up and down Royal Avenue, the Seagulls do exactly the same! They follow the road at about a height ¾ of the buildings either side of their flight path and make circuits around the streets scouring their corridors for the glimpse of a meal below. There doesn’t appear to be a pecking order as each Seagull seems to be on its own route but with little flapping it seems the streets of central Belfast are almost perfectly set up for Seagull scavenging. The tall sides drive the wind one way and they ride any thermal they can hitch onto saving their energy as they are guided by the layout of the road below. Equidistant between the pavements, keeping an eye out for any spare carbohydrates crusting the floor. Some of those seagulls really are a bit more selective than their smaller Pigeon rivals but they all swoop for the best easy pickings and should that get in the way of a human that’s only a secondary concern for many.

Today I had a close encounter on the way home with one of the largest Seagulls I’ve come across or at least it seemed quite huge close up. With its wings spread and feet geared for landing, it was aiming for its evening snack when it happened to catch on that I was in its way and it was about to to crash land on my head rather than its intended target that was some way behind me. The gull, beautiful, sleek and imperious in its motion and presence at such unexpected close quarters almost won me over into thinking joining Bill Oddie in a hut to twitch wouldn’t be so bad. It was quite an odd moment, I’ve had owls, bats, birds of prey swoop over my head in the past at shows, on the moors of Yorkshire and the likes but just a plain old seagull doing an impression of a terradactyl about to hit a wall but pulling out and hovering for a few seconds in front of my eyes was a fine sight. I did manage to say hello to it as it was on its way back up to the sky so it wasn’t entirely a one way encounter. It was just a shame that it so unexpected and over so quickly I didn’t have time to pull out my camera. I did capture a snap of one of its friends perched high waiting its turn at the lights though.


Alas, it was just after food and so no doubt with a chip held high in the air it’s an experience we can all have many times over if its not making it a little bit forced just to meet a seagull . It does seem these birds are addicted to fast food though and like gangs being encouraged by the lure of drugs money, the means to an ends of 'class A' bird food is along the lines of; once you and your buddies get your beak on it, you do what you have to, to ensure it’s your species that keeps it. That was the scene that played out before our eyes near the Dublin Road movie house the other week, before we went to see Bruno.

A small flock of Piegons were head to head with a colony of Seagulls. The prize – Pizza.

The pigeons held no sense of caution and would follow the food where ever it was being dragged to, even if it was in the way of oncoming traffic that wasn’t going to stop for them. As usual the pigeons won their game of dare and got a few pecks in, banging their little faces into the cheese over and over and over again. However, when confronted with even numbers of opposing birds, the Seagulls pushed them out of the way and the smaller pigeons avoided confrontation. The Gulls were not going to let this slice of luck pass by and ended up squabbling between their selves and not making much headway with getting anything down. A display of cunning to nab it, leave all your friends hungry shortly before being chased out of town and being made to drop anything you had, then come crawling back to the pack, seemed their preferred tactics. This though was just panning out to be a never ending futile endeavour , a repetative game of ‘pass the pizza’. Not far out of sight this was being played out under the gaze of the pigeons who had in the meantime gathered their backup. This was fine untouched pizza and if the gulls were going to get it they were going to have to earn the right to it. The pigeons made their move, 2 to one they now had the mass in their favour and there was a free for all that ensued... as suddenly as they’d all jumped the stuffed crust they were scurrying and leaping from the scene... a giant ape, one not looking where he was going, lifted his foot up for the next stretch forward and came down in the middle of the cheesy treasure. I could have sworn some of those birds took a double take at him with a “whaaaa, mr... nooooo!”, the disappointment was compounded even further by a clever little gull dived down with shock and awe on his side. Swooping the remainder of the pizza, that wasn’t embedded into the pavement, up into the air and far away from all but his birdy friends with the same idea. No doubt for the unsavoury incident to be repeated elsewhere.

It's a mad urban kingdom out there, so I offer this one word of advice for those heading into Belfast...

...”DUCK!”