Belfast Wednesday 24 September

Headed down to the 'Harland & Wolff' docks to see the Titanic exhibition this morning.  Very well done although Chloe soon got bored.  It was amazing to see the size of the cranes they had to build to build the Titanic.  It took a year for them to furnish and decorate the Titanic.

Titanic Building (same height as the Titanic)

Chloe sitting on the sight the Titanic was built

Original 'Harland & Wolff' Gate

Then we hopped on the Belfast 'City Sightseeing Bus'.  This allowed you to hop on and off as much as you liked at 20 different stops (places of interest).  The lazy Mesley's stayed on board the whole way........  In our defence we had already seen most of the places but enjoyed the commentary.

A highlight of the bus tour was the 'Shankill Road' (Protestants) and 'Falls Road' (Catholics) and the wall between the two which is still locked at 6pm every night.

Orange Day (12th July) - Chloe's birthday

At the end we hopped off and went to 'The Crown' for our first glass of Guinness in Ireland!  An amazing pub - it has been featured in several films and has 10 separate booths (snugs).

Belfast Tuesday 23 September

Apparently it rained in the night. But despite being a little cooler it is a nice day again.

Morning spent at home with Georgie (Granny).  Catching up on the blog and ordering tickets to 'The Lion King' for when we get to London.  We hadn't planned on going to a musical (not Pete's cup of tea) but the guys at Eurotek made him promise he would take us to this show.  Thank you Thank you Thank you :)

In the afternoon we caught up with Dawn (Pete's 2nd cousin) and her family (Steve; Eden and Jona).  They came and picked us up and took us to 'The Ulster Museum' where we meet up with Dawn's Dad 'Trevor'.  Pete worked for Trevor when he first left Zimbabwe and lived in Ireland.

Eden; Steve; Kim; Dawn; Pete; Chloe; Hannah and Jona

They were awesome and I only had to ask them to repeat what they said a few times :)

We had lunch in the museum cafe before wandering around.  The museum had interactive parts to it and the girls had fun dressing up in the old Victorian clothes.

Trevor dropped us back home.

It was lovely to finally meet some of Pete's Irish family!

Dinner and a few glasses of wine before hitting the sack.

Belfast Monday 22 September

Pete flew back from Birmingham today so in the afternoon we headed into Central Belfast.

Wandered around the Cathedral Quarter, popping into St. Anne's Cathedral briefly.  Beautiful with amazing stain windows.  It is 238 years old......  they just don't make them like that anymore.

St. Annes Cathedral - The Spire of Hope

Learned about the red hand of Ulster.

According to one myth, the kingdom of Ulster had at one time no rightful heir. Because of this it was agreed that a boat race should take place and that "whosoever's hand is the first to touch the shore of Ireland, so shall he be made the king".    One potential king so desired the kingship that, upon seeing that he was losing the race, he cut off his hand and threw it to the shore—thus winning the kingship.   Mmmmmmmm if true (shrewd or nutter)???

Went down some tiny alley ways to find amazing murals and quant pubs.  It then became a game to see how many steps to the next one....  usually about 10 :)

Pete's Wine Cellar Entrance - YEAH RIGHT!

Came across a Disneyland store and despite going there in a few weeks the girls just had to go in and buy something.  It was pretty amazing.

Then went to the City Hall before catching a taxi home.

City Hall

Belfast Sunday 21 September

Another Taxi called and we headed off to the oldest market in Ireland - St Georges Market.

It was a mixture of food; craft & produce (fish/cheese/veg and fruit) stalls.  We had a great time looking around buying a few trinkets.

Hannah chose a giant crepe for lunch and Chloe, Georgie and I decided to have hot dogs.  The guy comes back with three big buns so of cause I told him he got it wrong - I ordered hot dogs not burgers and he said that's what they were.....  Opened the buns and the sausage was inside.   They were very tastie but not what we were expecting.

Sweetie shop inside St. Georges Market

Outside St. Georges Market

Belfast Saturday 20 September

Jet Lag set in and we were awake in the wee hours....

While Pete's away....  the girls will play.  Taxi was called and we headed off to the Forestside Mall.  We were all spoilt rotten by Granny who insisted on buying the girls some clothes.  Little did she realise how much my girls (especially Hannah) love to shop.

Stopped for a lovely lunch and then back to the shops for more shopping.......

Back home for a relaxing afternoon and another nanna nap :)

Belfast Friday 19 September

Pete flew out early to Birmingham for Eurotek.  

We spent the morning catching up with Granny.

Then we headed down to her local shops.

Had a lovely time meeting some of the ladies she works with in the charity shop.  Then stopped for morning tea......  Yum!  Came back to the flat for a nanna nap.  Not the best thing to do but we couldn't keep our eyes open.

Very lucky .... we have struck some beautiful weather.  Fingers crossed it last.

Take aways (Fish n Chips) for dinner then off to bed. The fish was delicious.

Flying to Belfast

7:30 pm on Wed 17th Sept we got picked up by Heather Andrew who very kindly took us to the Auckland Airport ( Thanks Heather) With a reasonable amount of luggage (with three girls in toe) we had a painless check in. Thanks to Air NZ. That airline is phenomenal. 

Auckland Airport "Mesley's Unleashed" UK Tour is about to get real!

First Leg was Auckland to Hong Kong. 11.5 odd hours. The plane was a 777/300 so we couldn't get a 4 person row so Kim drew first watch with me quietly seated in the row behind!

 The girls did surprisingly well. We took off at round 11pm so everyone was ready for a bit of kip - except for Chloe with an infinite supply of TV she cracked into systematically starting at one end of the library and commenced working her way through it.

Hannah couldnt work out why we were getting served dinner at midnight! Neither could we to be honest! But we still ate it!

Trip was pretty uneventful landed in Hong Kong at round 7:30am and soon noticed straight away how many people would think it ok to spit into the trash cans. Niiiice!! We quickly located our Gate, then once orientated we hunted out a coffee shop for some breakfast.

We found a food court. This was a little confusing as we would have to prepay for our coffee at the counter, but for everything else we would have to select the food we wanted first, then go to the counter to pay for it. So you could imagine that I spent a fair amount of time at the counter.

The girls got their first taste of different currencies. They got the fright of their lives when they saw a fruit bowl for $88! So I explained to them that this was Hong Kong Dollars. The current exchange rate of the Hong Kong $ is 7:1 so now we had a "This is why you go to school" conversation about how much $88 was really in NZ $. After what it seemed to be an eternity we worked out how many 7's go into 88. At this time I was on my 3rd coffee so I could take it. Chloe, the sweet tooth as she is, saw a black forest cake so asked if she could get that. So did Hannah! They both know now that eating rich chocolate at 7:30am in the morning is not such a good idea.

We get to the check in gate and Cathay Pacific were now the carriers for this leg. In the same type of plane (777/300) we had the same seating arrangements. What was quite interesting was they didnt have any structure to people boarding so they just opened it up. Now we have 300 people waiting in line. So we just decided to sit down and wait for the line to get smaller, than wait there in line for 3/4 of an hour like pilchards.
Then the steward (not allowed to call them Air Hostesses anymore, apparantly its uncool and unPC! - A mate of mine is a pilot and he calls them $40K / year coke machines, which I thought was pretty funny) then said that we have to line up because they have a "pre boarding" check. We looked at eachother and the Kiwis beside us and all just said..... Naaaaaaaaa stuff that.

We all got on the plane - 12.5 hours later, a permenant kink in ones lower back, sore neck, and the list of movies getting smaller as Chloe worked her way through them..... We arrived in Heathrow.

Now feeling a little jaded, we had to clear customs (which took an age) then proceed to Teminal 2. At pace I might add. I missread the flight departure time as being 17:15 and it was less than 50 minutes before that. So we power walked for about 15 mins to Teminal 2. Get to Air Lingus Desk, checked in, and the woman there said we were nice and early! Flight left at 20:40. So we, again, found a place to eat something and hung out at Heathrow for our flight.

Photo Bomb!!!! Kim and Hannah trying to simulate being back on those comfortable plane seats!

Flight into Belfast City was on an airbus small thing. But the only recollection I had was putting my seatbelt on closing my eyes and next thing I hear the anouncement saying to prepare for landing! Why doesnt all flights go this fast! - Mind you it was only 1:40 hours.

After 30 hours odd of travel we were glad to board a taxi in Belfast round 9:30pm. Got to my moms house. Finally in Belfast. I then unpacked and repacked my bag as I was to prepare for my flight to Birmingham for the Eurotek Technical diving conference leaving at 6:45am the next morning!

The adventure contunues.....