We had Tuesday pm and the Wednesday to get to Belfast and we drove up the Coastal route where possible, staying at a hostel on Tuesday night. Quite basic for the price but it did the job. Wed to Sunday nights we were booked into the team hotel, a Premier Inn in the centre of Belfast.
We managed a morning sight seeing and did an open top bus tour. This took in the Titanic quarter, Stormont, The Falls and Shankill Roads and was very interesting.
New Titanic visitor centre opening next year to coincide with the centenary year, representing the bows of the ship at each corner
One of the many murals from the years of the troubles
The peace wall, still there by a majority vote by residents to retain it
From Thursday pm it was full on games with not a lot of time in between. Squash Thursday pm, Opening ceremony Thursday tea time,Golf Friday, Badminton Saturday am and we watched some swimming in the afternoon. Sunday we went to the track and watched the field and track events.Closing ceremony Sunday and gala dinner Sunday evening. The events were spread over several venues so we weren't able to take in many others due to timings and travel. It was a very emotional 4 days but really excellent and everyone so friendly especially the Irish. At the opening ceremony everyone, athletes and supporters paraded through the town behind an Irish Pipe Band to the venue and then each team with their team name held high was introduced and seated. We thought it odd that the first 10 or so rows of the theatre were empty, but once everyone were all in they introduced the Donor Families. It must have taken a good ten minutes for the them all to be seated, during which time the whole theatre was standing and clapping until the last one sat, very moving and tear jerking.
The closing ceremony was very grand. Seated dinner for 1500 people at an enormous hall. In between courses there were 4 presentation sessions, with celebrity presenters, of trophies for various accolades. Such as best children's transplantee best women,men, best team etc.
Joe won a gold in the squash and takes great delight in being the reigning British and World Champion Squash player at 30 -39 age group. He had a bad hair day at golf with a good 10 stokes over what he would normally expect to go round in. He made up for that with a silver in Badminton, with one of the guys he beat in squash taking revenge.
The Berkshire Royals team
Train hard play hard !!
We dropped Joe off at the airport on Monday morning before continuing our mini break in Ireland with a trip up the NE coast road of Northern Ireland to visit the Giants Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. We camped for 2 nights at Ballycastle about 20 miles from the causeway. Wednesday it rained a lot but we weren't to bothered as we had to travel all day to get back to Rosslare to catch the ferry. We didn't arrive until about 7.45 pm taking in some beautiful little harbours on the way. We also saw a couple of seals having a rest on the rocks. We decided to sleep in the car rather than find a hostel or B & B as it was so late and we needed an early start the next morning. It was surprisingly comfortable with the seats reclined to max.
By 4.30 pm on Thursday we were back at Michael and Denise's in Somerset to collect Charlie and back at the boat by 11.30 pm
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