Our Ireland odyssey started yesterday when we drove across country from Kelso to Cairnryan to catch the P and O ferry to Larne. It was wonderfully calm, and sunny and cloudy by turns, a flat sea.

We arrived and were soon on the A2 coastal route north to our first stop, Carnfunnock Country Park. It wasn't far, and we settled in for the night quite quickly. It had been a long drive to the ferry.

In the morning we set off north again towards Glenarm, which we both remembered from 2008 when we took the boat south, and which I also remembered from 2013, when I sailed her there with Andy and Pam Burns as crew.

Glenarm was mostly as we remembered it, with ruined factory buildings near the marina, and tysties nesting in holes in the harbour walls.

We didn't linger, but headed north again to follow the coast road as much as possible. That got quite tricky when we found ourselves on roads deemed unsuitable for caravans, with impossible gradients and z bends, a white line in th middle but the edges getting closer and closer to it, so that most of the time the van was straddling it, in its lowest gear.

We parked up in Ballycastle and went for a walk by the marina, and shopped for lunch and dinner. A busy viewpoint was the stopping point for lunch, where we were surrounded by masses of people and cars while we were eating, but when we had finished thee was nobody left there, except one lorry driver having his snack. Odd!

Eventually we emerged again on to the main A2, to spot a National Trust site with a rope bridge between two islands. We decided to go for this, as it involved a good walk for us and th dog to th bridge, while only I was up for actually crossing it. It was really crowded, lots of people going to or coming from th bridge, so Jack had a lot of good crowd experience, and by the end of it was not greeting everyone like a long lost relative. He did however meet a fellow mini schnauzer, one Lily, and they had a nice nose sniffing session.

Ju took a picture of me looking intrepid on the bridge, suspended over a noisy north channel.

We drove on and wondered whether we still had enough energy for the Giants Causeway. We took a look at the massive carpark, tour buses, milling throngs and National Trust personnel, and decided to hit it again first thing tomorrow.

We hadn't booked anywhere for the night, and wound up in Bushmills at a very well-ordered site where there was a space for tonight but not tomorrow, as it is the bank holiday weekend and it is fully booked. So we have booked another sit for tomorrow, by the River Bann near Ballymoney.