I don’t want to board another plane for at least the next six months 😉 This was my fifth flight in 2023, and a long weekend break we booked ages ago. I flew from Liverpool to Belfast International where my buddies collected me from the airport and off we went, to County Tyrone. Ever since our holiday in Donegal we look for Airbnbs on the island of Ireland with a hot tub. Ireland’s cooler weather is perfect for it, even if umbrellas are often necessary and the water loses temperature towards the evening.

We could have easily spent a whole day in the jacuzzi but we had booked some activities and they turned out to be fantastic. Saturday’s entertainment was Armagh Cider Company and a ‘Blossom to Bottle’ tour which started in the orchard, then took us to the cidery and bottling hall, and, finally, a tasting session where we tried several types of craft cider as well as tonics and soft drinks. Being there took me back to my days as a young student on a work experience in the UK, at a fruit farm in Herefordshire. A back breaking, poorly paid job in all weathers but I loved it and I have photographic evidence to prove it 🙂 At Armagh Cider Company we learned how apple growing started in this particular corner of Northern Ireland – it’s all to do with the Plantation of Ulster and providing soldiers with a safe alternative to contaminated drinking water, but also with a unique micro-climate created by Lough Neagh and two rivers nearby. With such an abundance of apples they had to be utilized somehow…hence cider, apple beverages and cider vinegar production. We were amused by the fact that some cider labels are branded ‘protestant’ and some ‘catholic’, and it can cause quite a stir in Belfast 😉 My favourite, even though I normally like very dry cider, was Maddens Mellow, but I also liked its ‘protestant’ dry counterpart Carsons, named after Lord Carson, the Unionist. They can be bought in selected M&S stores in the UK, and in ALDI (under own label), Sainsbury’s and SuperValu stores in Ireland.

We popped into Armagh before the tour, saw both cathedrals, grabbed a good coffee and had a wander before heading to the farm. For such a tiny city Armagh had a nice selection of shops, a Theatre & Arts Centre, Observatory & Planetarium, Armagh Robinson Library and an Omniplex cinema.

Sunday was definitely more active: a 3 hour there and back Stairway to Heaven walk. The area is mainly a blanket bog and this man-made boardwalk and staircase protects the fragile environment – and protects the walkers too! The ascent was fairly easy and the number of steps initially daunting but we had no difficulties whatsoever. There were a few showers on the way but the visibility was decent and the views as beautiful as promised – the treeless landscape, big skies and bright purple heather. Some lonely sheep here and there 🙂

With the usual suspects 🙂

We were all packed and ready to leave on Monday when I suddenly saw cows in the front garden ! They were being redirected from the opposite fields to the barn for a meeting with a pair of vets and they clearly didn’t like it one bit 😀 It took a coordinated group effort of three people to gather disobedient cows – they were literally on the run, one attempted an escape in the direction of Dungannon. What a spectacle! Add to this the adorable Bella the dog who tried to jump in our jacuzzi and no wonder we already booked this place for May BH 2024 🙂

As I said, I don’t have any flights or trips booked in the foreseeable future. I will need to fly to Krakow around Easter next year depending on the final eyes check up date. Then I’ll be in Northern Ireland again in our newly discovered hot tub heaven 🙂 My circumstances are changing at the moment and I need to be more thoughtful about where and how I spend my money and my time. For a non driving person like myself, an expense of a week’s stay in a mountainous area in the UK (even though I live in North West, therefore closer to the popular national parks), probably equals (if not exceeds) a cost of walking holiday in Innsbruck, Chamonix or Italian Dolomites, not to mention the Polish or Slovakian mountains. I like UK landscapes but with ever increasing costs of train travel, paired with unacceptable decline in quality due to never ending strikes and cancellations, it’s actually less stressful to hop on a plane and fly to Europe where there are tons of walking opportunities in the summer months, hundreds of kilometers of trails – minus the midges. More bang for my buck too, as the Americans say, and my understanding is that these regions, be it Austrian Alps, or the South Tirol, have an extensive public transport that eliminates the need of car hire, pricey car parks and being stuck in traffic on single lanes. Having said that, I want to visit York again. I would love to see the Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. I want to climb the Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis, ideally in the spring time when the days are sufficiently long and the dreadful midges aren’t in full force yet. I want to see St Magnus Cathedral in the Orkneys, because I like Magnus and his little church in London 🙂 I want to do some walking on the Isle of Man. I have never been to Cornwall. So, there’s still quite a lot left in this country for me to see, and, according to my masterplan, I have roughly 10 years to explore it all 🙂 Then, onto pastures new, wherever they might be…