Written by Hamish and Belinda

Belinda

This day trip to Belfast has been in the planning for months and was triggered by Hamish’s love of all things Titanic after a trip to Sydney at the start of the year with Rod. I booked tickets to the Titanic Museum and our return train journey a couple of months ago.

Hamish

The day arrived and we went to the train station, we had to catch a bus to get there. Mum had snacks in her backpack (pringles, chocolate and bananas) and activities for me to do. We had to wait at least a good half an hour before the train left Dublin. On the train we had to sit across from the grumpiest lady in the history of the world. I accidentally kicked her a couple of times under the table and she wasn’t very happy about it, even though Mum apologized. Mum and I ended up swapping seats – then the lady kicked Mum under the table.

It was a biiiiig walk from the train station to the Titanic museum. But it wasn’t raining – phew!! When I saw the museum, it looked amazing. It was ginormous! When we went inside, we had our tickets checked, then we put our stuff in a locker (which cost 1 pound, twice because Hamish locked it before it was closed…). Then we had lunch – my toasty was amazing, so big I couldn’t finish it. Then we started the tour of the museum.

I was given a challenge by the staff member, to find out information along the way. Such as, how high was the gantry the Titanic was built around (69m high!!). We got to see how much bread and provisions were on board – there were 40 000 eggs! At one point, we caught a lift up to the 4^th floor, to give an idea of what it was like to be a worker on the Titanic – it was scary! (It was 20m lower than the actual Titanic gantry).

Once we finished looking around, we bought a few souvenirs and then looked at the last remaining White Star Liner called Nomadic. I wasn’t especially interested in that, but we looked around and Mum took some photos.

Then we started to walk back to the train station. Mum said we should walk because it wasn’t raining and we had time. She fed me smarties to help me make it back to the station. On the way we saw a huge seagull dropping mussels on the ground to crack them open to eat the meat. It was very interesting.

After that, like ten minutes later, my feet were killing me! I was going to take a break, but Mum said you can’t take a break because we’re almost there. We caught the train back to Dublin, it was dark just after we left Belfast at 4pm. In Dublin, we caught the bus back to our street and went to the Spar to get some dinner (sushi), juice, bread, yoghurt, fruit and biscuits.

Belinda

Hamish has been the best travel buddy and I’m super proud of him. This makes it easier when we’re trying to navigate multiple public transport systems in an unknown city. We’ve not done too badly, us kids from the country. Rod arrives soon and he can update his 3 days from Germany.

Oh, and you might be interested in the menu from the train service. I could have purchased a full bottle of prosecco for my trip!