Retirement trip - Day 38

Left Limerick in (guess what?) light drizzle and made my way to the motorway. Since the first day of the trip where I used motorways to get from my house to Portsmouth, I had managed to avoid motorways and and travelled only on back roads. However, this was my last day and I wanted to get to the ferry terminal in Belfast in time to get the boat back to Scotland.

Not much to report about the trip, the road was fairly empty and free flowing until I got close to Dublin where it got a bit busier and was fairly stop/start getting onto the ring road. After that it quietened, and was very clear up until I got close to Belfast. At some point I crossed the border, but as it's not marked, I only realised when I saw a sign referring to the road as the A1 rather than the N1, and the town names were in English only.

I had booked onto the 19:30 sailing, but arrived at the ferry terminal at around 14:00 and managed to change my sailing to the one at 15:30. I rode out of the ferry terminal to fill up with petrol and returned to take my place in the queue to get on the boat. We were soon told to board the ferry and our bikes safely tied down for the two hour crossing.

The crossing was very smooth and is long enough for you to get a couple of cups of coffee, walk around the deck, and have a look at things in the shop. Eventually we were called down to the car deck, bikes unstrapped, and we waited for the doors to open.

However, a crew member told us all to make our way back up to the restaurant and await further instructions. When we got there the crew counted all of the passengers and informed us that a man had ended his life by jumping from the ship into the sea as the boat docked. 

We had to wait as the emergency services retrieved the man from the sea, a helicopter took him away, and the Police interviewed witnesses to the incident. It was about two hours before we were allowed to leave and they informed us that we would disembark slowly as the Police wanted to question each passenger. Luckily, motorcyclists were allowed to leave the boat first, I was the third person off the bot, I was asked some questions by the Police and allowed to go on my way. The ride back from Cairnryan was uneventful, just taking place in varying levels of rain! Just after Ayr, when the rain was particularly heavy, my bike stuttered and cut out. It took me a few minutes to get it restarted and it ran OK all the way home. I assume this was caused by water getting into the electrics, possibly those that had loosened earlier in the trip, something I will look at later.

After about two and a half hours I made it back to my house. 38 days, 6 countries, 3 ferries, 6700 miles/10,800 km and a lot of memories. It was an amazing trip, visited lots of interesting places, rode on some amazing roads, and the bike (mostly) behaved itself. The Bonneville showed itself to be a very competent touring bike, and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone.

I'll write an article soon about what I learned on the trip, what I would have done differently, etc, etc.