5/31/2010. We landed in Dublin Ireland after a short flight from Paris. Again, our bags are first off the conveyor, and we immediately head for tourist info. There we procure a bus to Lisburn; they tell us to hot foot it to the #1 Bus Eirann terminal just outside where the bus departs for the Sprucefield shopping center in 3 minutes after we get there. We're headed to Lisburn, just outside of Belfast, but we couldn't change our itinerary. The bus takes about 2 hours & 15 minutes. We call Sam, our contact at Phil McCallen's and a few minutes later Phil picks us up in Sam's Jaguar. Our bike, a shiny new KTM 990 Adventure is ready and waiting.
As we're transferring luggage, I notice I don't have a power adapter and they hook up an SAE cable to the battery for me. Not long after this I figure out that I have screwed up the map update on my GPS. Dublin & Edinburgh, 2 significant way points are not showing detail maps for the GPS... This will be challenging. The GPS dutifully and accurately takes us to just north of Dublin, but from here we're on our own. We make 4 wrong turns, stop for directions twice and make it to the hotel late, but in time for dinner.
We only have a short hop into Dublin to the port the next day. Our hotel was the Royal Marine in Dun Laoghaire. We leave about 10 minutes later than we like, but still an hour before required arrival time. Dublin traffic is quite heavy. I am still in 'American' mode; what many Americans are 'offended' by by way of driving habits are common place in Europe. We spent 10 minutes at one light moving one position. This was not going to work, so after a scooter grabbed the bus lane, we started splitting and opting for the bus lane. It worked. We'd still be sitting at that light coming into Dublin if we'd played by the rules. Only 3 wrong turns coming in, which isn't too bad considering... Even so, the trip was 30 minutes with probably 8-10 of those recovering from the wrong turns - one was a one way street. We opted for lounge seats both ways and for about 10 minutes it looked like we would be the last ones on but a few stragglers finally showed. The lounge was nice, with regular service from wait staff and worth the extra money. The Isle of Man was 3 hours away.
We had arranged lodging through Wembley Accommodation Services, staying right in Douglas on Peel Road. Our innkeeper had agreed to meet us at the ferry to get us to his place. Good thing as you can't actually get to his place from Peel Road. Alas, we arrive by ferry some 20 minutes early and when we get off the ferry, it's a sea of bikes heading off but nobody to be found. We pull over to the side parking lot to strategize. I've left our innkeepers number at home, and it's not on my phone. I decide we will try for my travel office in Douglas, they have my TT tickets for the Grandstand on the 7th. We button up and get on the bike. As we make our way out of the terminal parking lot, a gentleman in a gray SUV of unknown manufacture shouts out my name... I'm thinking "who knows me here?" - it's our innkeeper. He says he'll turn around and guide us in.
Our guy is Ray Travis, a guy who is retired and hosts a B&B for TT week, bike races, etc. When we get to his place, he says "I saw the Stars & Stripes helmet and figured, that has to be my American guests ! Ray excels as an innkeeper and is probably the nicest guy you'll meet. Our week stay there couldn't have been better.
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