Belfast; Saturday, 01 August, 2009

10 minutes late by the border became 20 minutes late by the time we finally pulled into Belfast Central station, the train had crawled the last few miles into Belfast (though it had saved some time by not letting everyone off who wanted to get off at Portadown, there were a half dozen, quite unhappy customers still on board as the train pulled out!)

From Belfast Central I hopped on the next train back to Great Victoria Street and walked the short distance to my hotel for the night.

Having checked in and dropped all my stuff off, I headed back out to go south of the city to Strangford Lough, the largest sea Lough in the British Isles.

There are several ways of getting to the lough; I caught the bus down the coastal side of the Ards Peninsular and round the bottom to Portaferry.

I had a look around the town, taking in the aquarium (Exploris) and its ruined castle, before popping across the mouth of the lough to Strangford on the opposite side. The 150 Square Kilometers of lough narrows down to a channel just a couple of hundred meters wide by Strangford and the ferry really had to fight the tide to get across.

I had a wander around Strangford, taking in it’s slightly less ruined castle, before it was time to head back across the lough to Portaferry and the bus back to Belfast.

The return bus ran up the edge of the Lough to its start at Newtownards, offering a different selection of stunning views to the ones on the way out.

By the time I finally arrived back in Belfast the light was starting to fade so it was time to grab a bite to eat and then head to bed.