From Bristol to the Giants Causeway

This was a very different type of adventure for us, but it was an adventure, nonetheless.

When my mate from Plymouth called and said he and Pompey Daz had signed up to a sports car tour of Ireland I wasn’t initially overwhelmed with enthusiasm. I did a round Ireland tour in my VW Camper back in 2010 as part of the Eireball Run, and I was still traumatised by the everchanging weather, slow progress and looking after 2 young kids on my own.

However, the idea took hold and the thought of spending a week with my friends, and the opportunity to meet new and interesting people with a common love of sports cars began to appeal. My wife, Wooksie, took a bit of convincing, but eventually agreed to spend a week in the passenger seat of our Porsche, as the tour did look a lot of fun.

The trip was organised by OTR Car Tours.  The 2 tour managers were great guys (Richard and Kevin) as petrolheads themselves, are absolutely living their best lives taking people on car tours, driving fast cars and earning a living, almost as much fun as being an Chief Adventure Officer. Each day involved clocking up 200 plus miles over 6 or 7 hours, so it isn’t for people who get car sick.

My mate Mr Blowey is one of my lifelong Plymouth friends, and a person that has the potential to cause even more chaos than me when ignited, so the thought of spending a week in his company promised fun but potentially carnage. Though it has to be said he is moderating with age, like a fine wine or stagnant water!

So, we had to meet our fellow adventurers in Holyhead for the start of the trip. I decided that this was a great opportunity to see the Welsh mountains, so from Bristol we took a direct route up the Cambrian Way to take in Snowdonia on the way.

Now the Cambrian Way is basically a holiday on its own, with numerous mountain passes on the way, andwith a detour, you can travel through the Snowdonia national park with stunning view of Snowdon itself, before crossing the Menai Bridge and into Anglesey. 

I have done this route up to Coed y Brenin on various mountain bike trips but had never been blessed with blue skies and glorious weather, which was promised for our trip.

Things nearly got off to a good start.

But the days leading up to Mr Blowey leaving Plymouth had not been kind to his superfast Mercedes SL55 AMG sport car. When it was new it was the fastest convertible produced, but it was no longer new and had been stuck in the garage for a couple of years. A few issues had arisen, some of which had been repaired and others hadn’t. 

Two notable ones affected the trip, firstly the stereo stopped working the day before they departed, and before setting off there was a complex array of Bluetooth speakers and data feeds to be connected as part of each departure, which took ages and involved a fair bit of cussing.

Secondly, he had no handbrake either. Mrs Blowey observed the car seemed to roll when they got out, he insisted it was her imagination and everything was fine.

So, we headed off towards Anglesey and discovered that north of Newport, Wales is almost devoid of toilets and places to stop for coffee, it is one big vast countryside with nothing in it but 20mph speed cameras and closed cafes.  I suspect the bikers and drivers that used to pour into Wales for the great roads stopped when the ridiculous speed limits were introduced.

The route took us up through Abergavenny, towards Brecon ,then on to Builth Wells where we finally found a loo and a cup of coffee, then on to a whole load out unpronounceable places with one particularly spectacular mountain pass, Abergwesyn Pass, which gave, tight hairpins, and incredible views before heading towards Llanberris and the views of Snowdon,

After 6 hours of amazing scenery, purchasing numerous fridge magnets for the Blowey family at Llanberris, we found the only traffic jam in Wales, 2 miles from our hotel.

Time to meet our fellow travellers, and what a lovely bunch they turned out to be, and what a scary bunch of cars they owned, I put my little Porsche Cayman round the back out of the way.

A few beers to get to know people before dinner and an early night. 6am we were up and ready as we had to get the 7.30am ferry. A bit of a dash from the hotel and suddenly the ferry had a very long queue of expensive cars and needless to say we were the last already.

My morale improved with the girl in the ticket booth leaned out the window and said she thought out car was the nicest, I’m pretty sure that was because it is red rather than a technical appraisal of its capabilities. The ferry then promptly departed at 7.10am, 20 minutes ahead of the 7.30am departure time for some reason, they are called Irish Ferries for a reason.

After a 4 hour ferry trip we hit the roads of Ireland, and within seconds I had lost everyone as the other cars demonstrated their exhaust tones and acceleration to each other, whilst we battled with the satnav and made steady progress. 

The OTR guys are really good, they have Kevin out in front setting the pace and showing the route and Richard follows up the rear, so we were glad to see him in our rear mirror, we weren’t too far behind

Day 2 (Day 1 is arriving in Holyhead) involved a long drive from Dublin to the north, once we were off the motorway we followed the coast road with great views across to Scotland on a beautiful summer’s day. We picked up the convoy again and the procession of burbling sports cars made its way along the coast with passers by taking snaps and waving, with the average speed of the convoy increased as soon as the road cleared .

One of the problems with the Northern Ireland stage was it is in the UK, and as a chap with a few too many speeding points, I didn’t want to have any interactions with the law after 3 stressful years on too many points, so I tucked myself in behind one of the Yaris GRs and enjoyed someone else taking the strain of speed cameras and got used the excellent handling of the Porsche on the coastal road.

We finally made it to the big event, the Giants Causeway with the strange rock fhexagonal rocok formation, this is the second time I’ve been there and the second time I’ve been underwhelmed but it was a good excuse to stretch our legs. I’ve visited many famous natural sites around the world, but none as disappointing as Giants Causeway, the unique hexagonal stones appear to be huge in the photos, but can be measured in inches rather than feet, anyway, never need to go there again.

OTR had organised a great hotel (Bayview) on the waterfront near Bushmills and we all checked in. We had a lovely see view, whilst the Bloweys were given a room overlooking the car park, so we put them in charge of vehicle security, which they weren’t that chuffed about.

So, we had beer on the seafront, a fabulous dinner (which we were late for and had to sit on our own as punishment) and off to bed in preparation for another long day tomorrow when we picked up the “Wild Atlantic Coast” road along the west coast of Ireland.

Here are the best of the cars on the trip