The Irish adventure: Part 4 27/04/15

Day 4/4, and as Paul and I sat tucking into another round of Ulster Frys, we could not help but feel a sense of disappointment that the holiday was almost over for another year. Joined by Mark and Colin, we decided to venture into Central Belfast and look at the modern bus scene in the City Centre for the morning before we had to return to the airport and head home.

With a mix of heavy rain and short bursts of sunshine, much of the photography around City Hall was done bursting out from bus shelters in a bid to protect oneself from becoming too moist (hence the lack of photos in this section). With the rain halting play on the photography front yet again Colin decided to stay in the centre of Belfast while Mark, Paul and myself took a bus ride along Shore Road to Duncrue Street and Translink HQ, where after a chat with a lovely lady on the reception desk we ended up in an upstairs office in conference with the director of enginnering, where we discussed both 2599 and 1321, and exchanged contact details.

After our unexpected meeting and a quick photograph under the entrance to 'HQ' we returned to City Hall, with just enough time to pick up our cases and board a Metro Optare Versa (no escaping the cheap nasty plastic Optare crap, even on this side of the Irish Sea) to return to Belfast City Airport for our flight home aboard the same aircraft on which we had flown just days before. The flight was somewhat turbulent to say the least, and your blogmaster was certainly glad to touch down safely on solid ground! We collected our bags and boarded our shuttle bus from the terminal to the car park (you guessed it, another bloody Versa!) From here, we made the short drive to Glossop to return Mark safely home before taking the long drive back to Nottinghamshire, made even longer by a major accident on the Snake Pass resulting in a long diversion through the Peaks via Tideswell and Baslow. Your blogmaster bailed out at the home of his young 3yr old Godson bearing gifts (I am in the process of slowly corrupting young George into transport, not that its taking much corruption haha!)

And so our Irish adventure was over once again. I would now like to take a moment to extend my thanks to old friends including Robert Nogues, Ben Simpson, Phillip McAlinney, Richard Shannon, Andy Lawless and James Ferrin, and in my case new friends including Edward Miller, Michael Burgess, Richard Davis, William Young, Ken Menagh and Glenn Shaw to name but a few for making our 2015 Northern Ireland weekender one to remember. My apologies if I've forgotten anyone, but there are so many of you who made our holiday I cannot physically include all those names here, so thank you to you all! Same time next year??...