Carrickfergus; Sunday, 08 June, 2025

I had a late breakfast and a relaxed morning before checking out of the hotel, leaving my heavy bag with reception, and heading out into town to do a little bit more exploring, first stop being the largest remaining part of the old town walls which formed the northern and eastern part of the fortifications.

From there it was a short walk through the town park and underneath the railway to the Mill Ponds. These were the former ponds of a water powered mill, but today they are a nature reserve home to a significant number of ducks, geese, swans, herons and the usual selection of gulls and pigeons which were all busy out despite the pouring rain.

After taking in the Mill Ponds I headed back in towards the centre of town, wandering through the Marine Gardens which house both a small garden and the towns warm memorial and memorials to some of those killed in the troubles.

I then had a look at some more of the walls, including the Northeast Bastion, before heading over to the castle to make that my final main visit of the trip.

The castle was originally built in the 12th century and was updated and adapted over the centuries, but today has been restored close to how it would have looked in those early days, with much of the site open to be looked around including all the wards, rooms and the Keep, though sadly no access to the roof, which is a shame as I suspect the views would be excellent.

I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the castle before it was time to head back to the hotel and grab my bag. I had a choice, I had more than enough time to make the 15:24 train, but that would leave me with over 3½ hours at the airport, so instead I popped into the attached Brewers Fayre to have a drink and take advantage of the WiFi to get my photos off the camera and up into the cloud before starting the long journey home.

Just after 3 I left the hotel and headed over to the station to pick up the train into Belfast, where there was an easy 20 minute connection onto the airport bus which zipped my straight out to George Best Belfast City Airport. I had a very smooth journey through the airport with just one other person in security at the same time as me as I’d arrived before the last flights of the night opened checkin and just as the previous batch were all on final call. In fact I was early enough that when I sat down in the lounge I was able to watch the previous Heathrow flight get pushed back on it’s journey back across the Irish Sea.