Saturday 8th October 2016:
The reservation instructions, with their offer of a complimentary shuttle bus, had made it sound as if the rental office was some distance from the terminal. On arriving at Belfast International Airport, we called for the shuttle bus from within the terminal and headed outside to wait in the designated zone. Once we’d stepped out of the terminal it turned out, the Sixt headquarters were within eyesight - literally only across the car park, a few hundred metres away. We waited, feeling bad to just vanish, and yet somehow it still took 20 minutes for the bus to arrive.
The bus journey lasted all of roughly a minute and a half, and soon enough we were cruising off in a red Kia Rio (Brendan had been hoping for a more European car but anyway…). Instead of heading into the city we’d made the decision to zoom out through the rolling green hills of the countryside to spend the day on the north coast and the Causeway Coastal Route.
About an hour from the airport, we reached the seaside town of Portrush. The road into the town passes by Royal Portrush Golf Club. The course has been beautifully designed to embrace the contours of its undulating terrain and on one side borders the North Atlantic ocean. We drove through town, past the harbour, and set out to find lunch. Even though it was only a Saturday, there wasn’t much open. After lunch we drove through the main street and up to the top of the peninsula, where we were perplexed to see several abandoned and boarded up terrace homes. Just about anywhere else these homes would be worth in the millions with their amazing unobstructed ocean views, but here they have just been left to decay.
Back on the road and we set off along the Causeway Coastal Route, presumably the Northern Ireland equivalent of the Great Ocean Road, bound for the Giant's Causeway. The Giant’s Causeway is the result of more than 40,000 interlocking basalt columns formed by intense volcanic and geological activity 60 million years ago. The legend behind the formation has it that a giant called Finn McCool built the Giant’s Causeway as a path across the sea to reach Scotland. On reaching Scotland an even larger giant Benandonner is awaiting ready to fight Finn. When Finn realises just how big Benandonner is, he runs back home to his wife, Oona, meanwhile Benandonner has followed Finn over. Oona dresses Finn up as a baby and when Benandonner reaches Finn’s home and sees the size of the "baby", he is scared off by the thought of how big his father must be. Benandonner runs back across to Scotland and smashes the Giant’s Causeway so that Finn cannot follow.
Throughout the site are several clues of Finn’s existence, including the Giant’s Boot, the Camel and the Giant’s Granny. We were told that there are similar columnar basalt formations on the Isle of Staffa in Scotland, providing further proof of the existence of giants.
Returning to the red rocket Rio we cruised on back towards Belfast, detouring via the natural attraction known as the Dark Hedges. On a quiet country lane, the intertwined branches of these beech trees is quite a remarkable sight to behold. At our arrival, while the sun was setting, the trees were surrounded by the aurora aura of a golden glow. The photos look even more dramatic in black and white.
The Dark Hedges have been used in filming, most notably Game of Thrones, and so there are tour operators that roll down these narrow country roads with bus loads of tourists. We were fortunate enough that only a few other people were around, so we could best enjoy the atmosphere.
It was dark by the time we arrived at our hostel. It was lucky we were already tired because our room, located directly opposite a rowdy pub, was far from sound proof.
The next morning we went on a walking tour organised by the hostel, however since none of the other guests joined up, it was just the two of us and the guide.
We started wandering the street up towards Queens University, past King William Park, where we started noticing a lot of abandoned buildings. Our guide made comment that Belfast has low property rents but high vacancy rates. He also said that each year Northern Ireland loses a third of all 18 year olds who move out of the country to escape from the religious/political drama.
We continued on through the Botanic Gardens and then down through a commercial district, all the while still passing abandoned shops and houses. Many of those that have been boarded up have had large stickers depicting windows and doors put on in an attempt by the council to conceal their derelict state. Our guide continued telling us about the trouble between the Catholics and Protestants. In a nutshell, the extremist outfits of the Catholics desire a united, independent republic of Ireland while the Protestant loyalists are devoted to the British monarchy.
Our guide explained that, oddly, the extremist Protestants generally hate England but are attached to the idea of remaining a part of Great Britain because of the links and close proximity to Scotland. Indeed from certain parts of Northern Ireland, you can see across to Scotland. From the stories we were told, the ongoing warring between the two groups has resulted in Northern Ireland being a bit of an unwanted child. Apparently when surveyed in recent years, most citizens in the Republic of Ireland said they did not want to unify with their northern neighbours. Our guide speculated that considering the tumultuous past, Great Britain would probably also like to rid themselves of Northern Ireland.
Back down near the hostel, we wandered past some very smart public housing. These homes were charming, well presented terraces – you’d never guess that they were public housing. Apparently the cost to live in one of these starts from a mere £85 per week. Maybe we should have been living in Belfast all this time. On the opposite side of the street are former police headquarters. Sitting to the rear of the old police station is the abandoned and derelict former Social Security Office, bombed by mistake in the 1990s (our guide said the intended target was probably the police station). On the side walls of some of these council-owned homes are murals, acting as recruitment propaganda for the extremist gangs. Our guide said that they generally target teenage boys. Opposite most of these advertisements for violence are then artworks coordinated by the council, depicting how a mainstream life of education and employment is a better way.
We were lead north further towards the city centre stopping in briefly at St Malachy's Church, one of the oldest Catholic churches in Belfast, and past the grand City Hall.
After the tour we went for lunch in an Irish pub, up the glass viewing dome at Victoria Square and then, on advice from our guide, took the car and headed a short distance out of the city to the coastal suburb of Holywood (with one 'l').
After about an hour sitting in a park on lush green grass fronting the sandy beach, it was time to head back to the airport and return the car.
Overall our time spent in Belfast had been positive, but the discovery of a minor scratch on the car marred the weekend slightly. The full story of our rental car rigmarole is detailed at the bottom of this post.
Highlights:
- Hired a car
- Lunch at Portrush
- White Rocks beach
- Causeway Coastal Route
- Giant's Causeway
- The Camel
- Giant's Granny
- Giant's Boot
- Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
- Dark Hedges, scene of filming for Game of Thrones
- Walking tour of Belfast
- King William Park
- Queens University
- Belfast Botanic Gardens
- Propaganda murals by the religious extremist gangs
- St Malachy’s Church
- City Hall
- Victoria Square Dome
- Drove out to Holywood and sat by the beach
Our rent a car rigmarole:
With only a limited time in Belfast we had pre-booked a hire car online, having selected the exact type of vehicle and insurance that we wanted, with the understanding that on arrival all we would need to do is produce ID and pay for the hire. We had opted to upgrade the insurance cover so that the excess in case of an accident was set at £100. We had chosen Sixt, as they are a large and well known company throughout Europe, and their offering seemed like the best vale.
On arriving at the rental office, the staff member told us that the car booked had been upgraded to a brand new one and that since our booking was only for 2 days, he would downgrade the loss damage waiver insurance to save us approximately £10. This downgrade then meant that the insurance excess would be £350. In any of our previous experiences with rental car companies, they have always recommended upgrading to set the excess at the lowest possible amount so we did think it was strange that he was downgrading the level of cover, but trusted his recommendation.
We were given the keys and vague instructions to find the car around the rear of the building; however at no point did an employee from Sixt accompany us to the vehicle. We found our particular car, parked side-by-side and nose-to-tail with other vehicles. The weather at the time of our collection was very overcast and starting to drizzle. Brendan did a walk around of the vehicle to see if there was any obvious damage but with the overall positioning of the vehicle and overcast, cloudy weather his visibility was reduced. There was no damage to the car that was immediately obvious.
We returned the car the following day, Sunday, and completed the handover with a different member of staff. This employee observed a small chip in the paint work and scuff mark to the lower left side of the front bumper bar. We had not noticed this small mark at any point until the employee, almost down on his hands and knees, pointed it out to us. In the limited time we’d used the vehicle, we had not hit anything. The scuff mark was noted as a “scratch” measuring > 10 cm, requiring an accident report form to be completed. The mark was not a deep scratch into the paintwork and merely a surface scuff and Brendan made comment that it could be easily polished out and removed however the staff member was dismissive of this suggestion. We were then made to fill in an accident report form and the £350 excess was processed.
After having enjoyed our time in Northern Ireland, we were furious and felt as if the entire weekend had been ruined. We couldn’t shake this feeling that the entire rental had been set up to scam us. Why were we intentionally sold downgraded insurance despite the original reservation, and provided with a brand new car that they would of course be more pedantic about? On return of the vehicle to the different staff member, his identification of the “damage” and in addition his reluctance to even attempt to rub the mark off, was a further insult.
Our entire weekend in Belfast had been relatively cheap hence the decision to pick up a hire car. The hire in itself was also pleasantly affordable, however once the £350 damage excess was processed our budget had truly blown out.
UPDATE: following an email to Sixt’s customer service explaining the experience we'd had, one of the directors phoned Brendan and was very apologetic and wanted to assure us that this is not how they conduct their business. He agreed to refund the full amount of the excess that had been charged. A win for us in the end!
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