Northern Irish Tour – Sunday 16th/Thursday 20th 2018

Club Member Patrick Light reports on a rally that he helped organise.

We have just arrived back from the most amazing Holiday! 10 Figaros in total joined in with us on the Causeway Coastal Route of Northern Ireland from 16th-20th Sept 2018. Some caught a ferry to Dublin and some into Belfast and us Patrick, Sarah Light & Debbie, Martin Isted caught the one into Rosslare in Southern Ireland.

We met up with 4 other Figs at Dublin on Sunday afternoon, so 6 figs convoyed our way up to our first Hotel in Carrickfergus where we met up with the other 4 figs, we then all sat down to a lovely 3 course meal and drinks after with a chat about tomorrows trip hosted by my wife Sarah. Up early for breakfast and a photo shoot and a drone shot then we were on our way for the first days adventure. Firstly we headed to Larne along a beautiful coastal road and time for a fly by drone shooting, then we were on our way to the tip of Ireland with sea to our right all the way, the roads were absolutely fantastic with a very windy road up and down into Torr Head, unfortunately the weather was to bad to get out but we so enjoyed getting there.

We were then off to Balleycastle for lunch and a lovely bowl of chowder, off again on our way to Carrick-a-rede which is a rope bridge between two rocks, a bit of a walk to get there but so worth the knee trembling walk across the swaying ropebridge. From there we all made our way to the second Hotel in Colraine for a two night stay, again after a lovely breakfast we made our way in convoy to Mussenden Temple where the lovely gardener let us in for free and while we were gone he phoned the local paper and they came and took pictures of our cars while we were gone!!

After the Temple we made our way to Dunluce Castle for a quick viewing and then into the Bushmills distillery for a guided tour, we were then our way to go and see the sights of the Giants Causeway and it was well worth the trip, absolutely amazing views and then we convoyed down to The Dark Hedges where the game of thrones was filmed, after this some went back to the Hotel and some just did their own thing and did some more sight seeing.Next day was a do what you like day, some carried on their sight seeing and some drove down to Dublin and spent the day there as we did and 6 others were we went on an open top bus and viewed the city and heard about it’s history and past. We all then hopped off and went into the Titanic Experience and then did a bit of shopping and as you do we ended up in a pub, the Crown a really old pub still with it’s original gas lighting, we did have lots of laughs in there.Then it was the last day and time to say our goodbyes to all the 20 lovely people who made this a very memorable holiday for us.

See you all again on the next Figaro Adventure.

Pat, Sar and Hattie

The footnote story of how one of our members travelled with one car but came home with two!

Anne Tyson and husband Nigel joined the rally with their Figaro Florence. Whilst chatting over a pint of Guinness the group naturally started talking about the other ‘Pike’ cars that Nissan made and that some of them also owned. Nigel then looked online and what a coincidence, there was a Pao for sale which would only involve a 20 mile detour. So they thought, we’re already in Northern Ireland so lets take a look. Neither Anne or Nigel had ever seen one before and they certainly had absolutely no idea they even existed until that day. But as soon as they saw him (soon to be named Frank) they knew it had to be theirs. They bought him there and then and he joined the other Figaros for a photo call that evening! They had to then booked a place for him on the ferry home.

Watch the video