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Soongies' Great Adventure
This morning was an early 5am wake up as we had to leave at 6:00 to get to Liverpool airport in time for our flight to Dublin. No flight cancellations this time around! We flew Ryan Air which was a positive experience. Once we got to Dublin, the immigration queue for non-EU residents took a long time. We were a little concerned we would miss the 10:20 bus which was taking us to Newcastle. Thankfully we actually made the bus with about 15 mins to spare – if we had have missed it we would have had to wait 2 hours at the airport. Of course we had to quickly buy something to eat from the airport as we wouldn't be able to manage the 2.5 hour bus trip with only an apple each (which we had taken from our England home). The bus trip was smooth sailing. Kate did have to keep her eyes close for a lot of the trip as motion sickness and buses are a lethal combination – with eyes closed it’s not a problem! We got off the first bus at Newry and then waited for half an hour for the next bus – the half hour seemed to go very quickly though! We arrived at the Newcastle bus station at about 1:00. We then walked down the main street (it was quite windy so very cold) pulling the luggage along. Kate thought Newcastle felt like a small Bournemouth. We then had to trek up a bit of a hill to reach Greenhill YMCA (this is where Calvin volunteered for a year, ten years ago – the purpose of this trip to Newcastle is to have a reunion with some of the volunteers and staff). For the first time, Calvin had to use the backpack function of the suitcase as there was quite a lot of gravel on the hike up to the centre. Kate didn’t have to as we only brought one suitcase with us to Northern Ireland! Once we arrived, Calvin was greeted by lots of friendly faces who worked at the YMCA 10 years ago and who still work there now – Brendan, Fergy, Michael, Jackie, Ryan and Ray. Calvin was also surprised to see how much the buildings and grounds had changed – it was looking much nicer and more sophisticated. We spent a while chatting to these friends about old times. Brendan settled us in to our accommodation which was Cabin 7 - a three bedroom (with bunk beds in each) self-contained wooden cabin which a balcony overlooking Newcastle. It was then time for us to head down into the town again to get some groceries from the supermarket. On the way we stopped at a cute coffee shop Nugelato – Calvin had a salted caramel hot chocolate and Kate had a white chocolate and vanilla cappuccino. After we had stocked up on food it was time to wander back through the main street and trek up that big hill again. We then met up with Stef (from Germany) and Eva (from The Netherlands) who Calvin volunteered with 10 years ago. They had come here especially to meet up. We all went on a tour of the facility whilst they all were amazed at how much had changed – there was lots more reminiscing. We came back to our cabin and chatted some more and then had pizza and salad for dinner at home. Calvin, Steff and Eva headed out for a late night walk up a Drinahilly whilst Kate stayed home (it was a bit too cold for her outside – she thinks they’re all crazy choosing to go outside at that time in the cold!). The walk through the forest brought back lots of memories for Calvin, Eva and Steff – going on nightwalks, bivi outs and outdoor cooking. It was quite cold with a front coming over the Mourne Mountains but the uphill walking was good for warming up. On the way, there was an amazing view of Newcastle at night – the lights all along the seafront. We got to the top and the wind was so strong up there it almost blew us off the rock we were standing on! On the walk back down, we almost got lost but found the right path and shortcut back to Greenhill.
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kentishclan Reunions are cool. I think that's a bit spinny that you can all return and regather from different corners of the globe. Good stuff