We are currently in Shaftesbury, UK and we have to go to Dublin for some administrative activities. The easiest route would be to drive to Fishguard UK (Wales) and catch the ferry to Rosslare, Ireland and then drive north to Dublin. But, we never do things the easy way. Well, we would if we could, but we can’t.
The dogs need health certificates (which require a vet visit and treatment). Additionally dogs can’t board a passenger ferry (dogs have to be in vehicles).
Just to make it a bit more complicated, the van we rented in the UK is allowed to be taken on the ferry to Northern Ireland, but is not allowed to be taken on the ferry to the Repubic of Ireland. If we take the ferry to Northern Ireland, we can’t then drive our UK rental into the Republic of Ireland. However, if we rent a vehicle in Northern Ireland (still in the UK) we can then drive that vehicle into the Republic of Ireland… still with me?
Step 1: deal with the dog issue. After calling many veterinarians we discover that most vets will only treat animals of their existing clients, shortage of vets in the UK? We finally find a vet who provides a part-time mobile service in Surrey and this vet will take new clients. This vet will travel up to 30 minutes from their location and visits the pets in your house. Easy, peasy. We just need to find a house within 30 minutes of the vet’s location.
Step 2: get the dogs, us and our luggage to Ireland. We can take a car ferry from Birkenhead (near Liverpool). The ferry trip is 8 hours and you can’t visit your pets in the vehicle. However, each ferry has two pet-friendly cabins, so we can get one of those if we book far enough in advance. We contact the rental company (Enterprise) and arrange to drop off our van at an Enterprise office in Belfast, and then pick up and new van that we can drive into the Republic of Ireland.
We have a plan. Time to go…
We find an Airbnb in Cobham, Surrey, which is close enough to the vet. The drive from Shaftesbury to Cobham is only 2 hours according to Google, so about a 3 hour trip for us (I’m still not going to drive anywhere close to the speed limit on these driveway-sized roads, and on the wrong side to boot).
We have to leave the Shaftesbury Airbnb at the ungodly hour of 10am (who has a 10am check-out time!), so even with our 3 hour drive we will still arrive in Cobham before the 4pm check-in time.
We find a nice place to walk the dogs in Andover called the Rooksbury Mill Local Nature Reserve. A small fishing pond (Mill Lake – see top photo) with a winding path, that connects to a large field where the dogs can run off-leash.
Finally check in to the Cobham Airbnb which is located on a small private property that contains 4 houses, all sharing a common driveway. The Airbnb we are staying in is a converted garage, a studio unit. Nicely finished.
Cobham is a suburb of London and has a very suburbia feel. We take a 25 minute walk to the nearest pub and it is a bit of a disappointment. Mostly tourists, partly closed due to staff shortages and they ran out of two types of on-tap beers! The pub was billed as a recently renovated 17th century pub with great views. The renovations hid any 17th century charm that may have existed and we didn’t see any (maybe from the closed-off areas of the pub?). A reduced menu, due to staff shortages, but my boar burger was good!
SweetPea didn’t waste any time settling in. Quite the princess (in her own mind at least).
The mobile vet arrived on schedule and had everything done, treatments and paperwork (done on a printer in her van), within 30 minutes. A great service!
Step 1: deal with dog issue. Done!
Long drive today. We are heading to Birkenhead which is located across the Mersey river from Liverpool. The Mersey river empties into the Irish sea. Birkenhead is where the Stena Line ferry terminal is located and we were able to locate an Airbnb just 10 minutes away from the ferry terminal.
Google says the drive is 4-1/2 hours which means 6+ hours for us (still not driving at the speed limits yet – I will start driving faster when they make the roads wider, and straighter). Also, the weather is forecast to be hot (29°C) and sunny, so we will stop several times to let the kids get some fresh air (no windows in the cargo area of the van).
Airbnb was big. Two stories, three bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen and a walled-in back yard (great for the dogs).
We booked two nights in Birkenhead in case we had any issues on the drive up. Also, we have to be at the ferry terminal at 8:00am on the day of sailing, so we don’t want to miss that!
We wandered around looking for a pub and ended up in a rougher part of town. We found a real local pub and stopped in for a pint and a cider and to get the dogs out of the sun. Got to love the UK, dogs allowed everywhere! One of the locals had a wee dog that introduced itself to us, loudly and repeatedly until the owner picked it up. SweetPea and Lump remained chill. Good on them!
Picked up fish & chips take-away from Gregories, just around the corner from us. Best fish and chips yet!
Checking out the cabin on the ferry. Dogs have decided that nothing needs checking and have gone back to sleep. They are getting good at settling in wherever we are!
Cabin was nice, but hot and the bathroom was very smelly (not us!). The staff checked our room and said everything was working as it should. We will try a different cabin on the return trip!
As we are sailing down the Mersery river, towards the Irish Sea, we see a large cruise ship docked at Liverpool.
Just down the corridor from our cabin is an outside area we call the “Pee deck”. This area has been set aside to allow pets to take care of business. However, our dogs, being country dogs not city dogs, won’t have anything to do with it. “Dad, where’s the grass? I can’t pee on the floor!”. Note to Stena Line: how about some artificial grass on one corner of the Pee deck?
The ferry is almost deserted and we have decks all to ourselves. One advantage to travelling outside of tourist season.
The vehicle deck has lots of cargo trucks, so there must be enough commercial business to keep the ferries running.
In Belfast we are spending one nite at the hotel “Gregory by Warren Collection”. Odd name for a hotel. Very old school hotel, with ground floor rooms you can hang out in. And they sell cigars.
We have a second floor room which is accessed by crossing the entire ground floor, through the dining room (with dogs remember) and then up three flights of creaky, but carpeted stairs. Lump is not keen on the stairs and requires a bit of encouragement (ok, we dragged him up) the first time, but after he discovered that pain, mutilation and/or death was not imminent he happily ascended and descended on his own. Silly dawg.
The next morning we head to the Belfast Enterprise rental office to drop off our UK van and pick up a Northern Ireland UK can (silly, I know). We opt for a smaller van as we don’t need the larger mid-size cargo van and, as I have mentioned previously, the roads are a wee bit narrow, so I am hoping a smaller van will help minimize the number of near misses when passing on-coming traffic. Also, the first van we had was a piece of shite (adopting the local vernacular after only 1 day here!). Really didn’t like it. Grabby brakes (almost launched us through the front windshield on more than one occasion), and poor handling.
Our new mini-van is great! Drives well, no grabby brakes, and lower to the ground (easier for Lump to get in).
Step 2 – Done!
We are now ready to enter the Republic of Ireland. Our first stop is the Garda (Irish Police) Station in Dundalk. Our research has indicated that travellers with Canadian passports need to get a stamp in their passport within 30 days of entering Ireland. Dundalk is on our way, so easy to stop in and deal with this today.
No problem navigating to Dundalk and the Garda Immigration agent is available… Why are you here? Explanation of stamping requirement ensues. We don’t stamp passports, why do tourists keep coming here? Because it says to on the Irish government website? No stamp, enjoy your holiday, good-bye!
Ok, Dundalk may have been a bit of a waste of time, but at least we can say we tried.
Next stop Wicklow County and the Airbnb in the country we have booked for six nites! No more pooing on city streets, the dogs are excited… and so are we.