Days Twenty-five and Twenty-six - Belfast City

'Belfast has been voted the world's second safest city', said the open-top bus tour guide, as we travelled down the Falls Road. 'After Baghdad, whispered Broth in my ear.
'...after Tokyo,' concluded the guide.

So many Belfast place names have been mentioned on the news in England over the past forty years but, thanks to the bus tour, I can now picture them.

We had a pint of Guinness for lunch in The Crown, a gas lit pub with little alcoves and which is controlled by the National Trust. Despite that it still had a great atmosphere.

The next day I said farewell to Broth, as he boarded a bus and set off to complete our joint circumnavigation of Ireland. There were twelve and a quarter hours before my ferry set sail for Birkenhead, so I had no need to rush anything.

It was threatening to rain and I did not want to get too wet, if I was going to be sitting around, so I did not venture too far from the city centre. I went on a tour of some of the areas by bike, that we had seen the day before from the bus.

The Shankill Road, is controlled by the Loyalists. Even this is divided, the upper part being controlled by a different faction to the lower. Union Jacks are all over the street, everywhere has steel shutters, most of which were down as it was Sunday morning. It looks an incredibly lively place, where the people have taken control of their streets and walls. Everywhere there are paintings, graffiti, posters and old damaged and boarded up buildings. The road bares the scars of years of battle, and anti-terrorism measures; Steel wire, high walls and bricked up windows but it shouts defiance at you as you travel along. Mum's push buggies, Dad's walk with their sons and old men give me a nod, as I stare goggle-eyed at what is everyday for them and self-consciously take pictures. I felt guilty being a tourist there and hoped the locals didn't object. I cycled on and came into a smarter middle class area but still, here and there, houses were boarded up or had wire grills over their neat bay windows. I try to navigate my way to the Falls Road area, which I can see by the map runs almost parallel to the Shankill but what is not shown on the tourist's map is the eight metre high fence between the two communities. I thought that I had found a way through, via a new estate with smart little bungalows, worthy of Bournemouth, apart from the occasional Union Jack in the front gardens and the continuous fence in the back gardens, but there was still no way through. At the end of the row of new bungalows there was a side road which was blocked by a huge iron gate. A girl poked her head through a small door in the gate. 'Olla,' she said. 'Olla,' I replied. Had I reached the Spanish Quarter? The girl was from a coach stopped on the other side of the fence and the thirty more Spaniards were being shown a notice which showed daytime openings of the door. Their guide told them that Belfast is the second safest city in the world after Madrid. They all climb back on their bus and I squeezed my bike through the door and found my self in the Falls Road, the Republican area of Belfast. This seems much worse and more depressing than the Shankill side. I think that probably the Shankill has more resources to keep it going than the Falls which feels less safe.

I don't know why but I have supported the Republican cause over the years, perhaps because their spokesmen have usually sounded more reasonable and it's hard to agree with Ian Paisley. Although I know it is more complicated than a distant Englishman can fathom but that morning, I think I had a lot more sympathy for the residents of both sides, and admiration that they want to keep alive their communities.

The Falls Road murals are far more global in their outlook than the Shankill. They refer to Bush, Iraq, Iran but also to the history of their own struggles, Bobby Sands and other heroes. As I was taking photographs a van pulled up at the lights with three rough looking lads who glared at me. They were probably going to the local Gaelic football match but I assumed they were a breakaway IRA group, sworn to kneecap any long distance cyclists who came down the Falls Road and I decided to get back to the centre of the second safest city in the world while my legs are intact.

I spent some time drawing in the gardens of the City Hall and visiting various undercover places when it rained. I pushed my bike into a shopping centre to get a coffee and a roll but while I was in the queue a security guard got onto his walky-talky about my bike and I had to explain that it was mine. There was no problem - the guards over here seem to be serious people and not a bunch of jobsworths. These guards are here to make peoples life easier. I must try taking a loaded touring bike in to Poole's Dolphin Centre sometime.

Later on I cycled out towards the docks with about fours hours to spare and got lost. As I went along a run-down street something like a green flare flashed across the street a hundred feet ahead. There was a bang. I don't know if it sounded like a gun shot, because we don't get many gun shots in Fordingbridge, at least, not down our end of the Whitsbury Road. I slowed down looking at a group of kids on my right and a little further ahead. There were two more streaks of light, were they fireworks? They came from the direction of the bunch of kids, then I heard some swearing and shouting from a group of girls on my side of the road. I looked at a man walking unconcerned on the pavement towards me and I wondered if I should ask him what was going on, but as I got nearer, I realised that he was staggering, not shot or hit by the 'tracer' type fire, but drunk. I'm on my own. So, I changed gear, got my head down and tried to turn my long distance cycling legs into sprint cycling legs whilst telling my self that Belfast was the safest city in the world after Rio, or where ever, and rode through the crossfire. But they stopped firing, what ever it was, as I passed and just shouted abuse at one another and, thankfully, ignored me. I cycled on and found someone to ask the way, he pointed me in the right direction, patted me on the back and wished me good luck. I hoped he was referring to my luck at finding the ferry terminal not at avoiding the local armed youths.

Liverpool tomorrow, which is a city of culture I hear. But it must be more dangerous than Tokyo or Belfast.

Will I make it home?

The ferry is Scandinavian and very swish. My bike goes in a trailer all to itself to be loaded on the ship and, hopefully, unloaded in Birkenhead tomorrow and I have a cabin all to myself.

Bye bye Ireland.

32 kms today.