David Mitchell

There are three kinds of holidays. Ones where you do nothing. Ones where you do new things. And ones where you do the same things you’ve done before.

When you do the same things – at the same time and place – the smallest changes become big events. Oh my word the brunch menu has expanded somewhat! Gosh, that shop front used to be green, didn’t it? I swear it was green last year. And so on.  

It’s also quite exciting to discover things that were always there that you had just overlooked.

Two years ago, I took a few shots at the shabbiness of Portstewart and Portrush, and then noticed improvements the next year.

This year I wasn’t especially looking for, or affronted by, grimness, which I take as progress for both myself and for the area. Instead, what struck me were some great new discoveries.

Let’s start by going west.

Taking the position that the pleasures of Castlerock are not really in proportion to the twenty-minute journey time from Portstewart, I have usually lobbied against going there. But friends gave us a tip that there was a nice café in Downhill, just past Castlerock. That was enough to inject some purpose into a trip in that direction.

The first item on our agenda is always the snack, so we began at the café. The Sea Shed appears on a back road by Downhill Forest. Inside, it’s beautiful, and dog friendly, though I must say its economic viability is beyond understanding. A fashionable café in the middle of nowhere? I can’t imagine hipsters launder money. Or perhaps people come for the several peacocks that strut around outside. I meant to ask why they had peacocks, where the peacocks sleep, what the peacocks do all day, and why the peacocks don’t fly away, but I forgot. But there the peacocks are. Unfortunately, our dog doesn’t accept the existence of birds, so when he spotted them, we had to escort him from the premises.

After that we walked around Downhill Forest, which I would describe as fairly middle-ranked as such bunches of trees go, and then crossed the main road to the Bishop’s Gate at Downhill Demesne and Mussenden Temple. Wife and kids had to run an errand, so they left me walking in the gardens. I was going to reacquaint myself with the Temple, but not far on I came across a signpost for Castlerock.

I have always found signposts to towns on walking paths pretty thrilling actually, and this one – in the warm sunshine – was irresistible. So, I set off. I asked the next man who came along how far it was to the village, hoping for a vivid description of an arduous but rewarding journey along a rarely trodden path that may or may not conclude by nightfall. ‘It’s not even a mile,’ he said.

It was a pleasant dander anyway, past good-looking caravans and down to a rise above the village. It was a great way to approach Castlerock beach. There, I waited, reading the dreamy menu of the ice cream truck and historical displays about the town.

One of the stories told was of the blasting of the tunnel beneath Mussenden Temple in eighteen-forty-something for the train line between Coleraine and Derry, the route made famous by Michael Palin’s endorsement and my own student days. The blasting was watched by a huge crowd. That evening, dinner was served in the tunnel for 500 guests; truly the dinner party from hell, if you ask this claustrophobe.

At last, the rest of the gang appeared, and we went into the Surf Shack (not to be but probably often confused with the Sea Shed) across the road. We ordered four mango, coconut, and mint smoothies, a beverage which overturned my long history of bitter prejudice against smoothies. Anyway, as we drank, one of the staff heard us calling our dog by his name. She came over and stroked him and said, ‘Aw, did you say his name was Mango? That’s so cute!’ And I became aware that we were all imbibing nothing but big, brightly coloured mango smoothies, and must have looked like mango-obsessed crazies who ate and drank mangoes all the day long and named their dog Mango and probably their children too.

Such was the success of this westwards venture that we came back this way another day. I had heard that there was a nice walk up at Binevenagh and thought that climbing a mountain would make a change from all our beach-based malarkey. Binevenagh is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, that amusing phrase that appears on signposts and sat-navs. To get up there, you go past Castlerock and down the hill to the remarkably literally named Downhill and take a winding road up. Quite suddenly you’re in rugged countryside. After a couple of miles you come to a viewing point called Gortmore. We parked and got out.

Straight away we were flapping in the wind like skydivers, but it was bright and mild and the view was spectacular. I love places where you can see the shape of the coast and realise that maps aren’t making it up. There was Lough Foyle, across it was Inishowen, and pointed at it like a crab claw was the yellow triangle of Magilligan strand, all where they should be. The Benone caravan park was a strange spread of tiny white boxes. I also pointed out the prison, which led to an introductory discussion with the kids about the criminal justice system.  

On the landward side of the road were steps that led to an even higher lookout. Up there was the statue of a man standing on a boat, arms outstretched over the vista. In this photo he looks like he is blessing the car park. In fact, he’s calming the tumult of the sea, for this is none other than Macannán mac Lir, Celtic god of the sea, the Irish Neptune. He’s extraordinarily lean; Michealangelo’s ‘David’ would look pudgy if the two were ever to meet. But I liked him. This trip was going very well.

Still, we (I) wanted a walk, so we drove on another few miles and turned into Binevenagh forest. This was a very bumpy and unmaintained road. It was long, straight, and ascending. I started to think that this couldn’t possibly be a place that people went, or would want to go, or that I wanted to go.

Far up ahead was a white van. Our approach was slow on that ragged road, giving me plenty of time to become convinced that someone was going to step out from that white van and riddle our car with bullets. But the van was just the forest service.

At long, long last we came to a gravelled area by a small lake, and saw a few other cars, and some reassuring children. Close by was another amazing view. There might also have been a deadly cliff drop right in front of us, but I was too scared to check it out, and we didn’t dilly-dally.      

Still eager for a walk, I led everyone around the lake. The path became progressively marshy and non-existent and I got grief the rest of the day for supposedly being the cause of everyone’s wet shoes and insect stings. But it’s hard to resist a circular route! Who’d want to go half-way and then backwards? That would be ridiculous.

So that was our Binevenagh. Wife and I decided afterwards that we very much like nature but prefer it to come with colour-coded paths, extensive signposting, safety barriers, free maps, and regular refreshments kiosks. I was going on about how creepy we found Binevenagh to a friend after we got home, and she said that on the one occasion her family went there, it was in thick fog.

And with that haunting thought, let’s go east.

I started doing the parkrun in East Belfast’s Victoria Park at the start of February. It’s a great way to cope with the winter. I’d heard that the Portrush parkrun is on the beach and was keen to experience it. When it came to the bit, I was giddy. It starts on the East Strand, below the Arcadia building, and you skirt the waves all the way to White Rocks beach, turn around, and return.

As I ran, I couldn’t believe that something this wonderful happens, every week, for free. Five hundred people, surrounded by white cliffs and dunes, adding our footprints to the hoofprints and dodging the jellyfish. Some of us had a dip in the sea at the end. Sure, I was lucky with the weather; I am fully aware how the north coast seduces you on good days then stabs you in the front with wind, rain, and regret. The tide was kind too. A man beside me said they are often forced to trudge through soft sand. My time was crap of course. I kept stopping to take photos.

Another day east took us all the way to Ballycastle. When I was a kid on holiday, my mother would always want to go to Ballintoy, the little harbour with mystical rock formations that we are all now legally obliged to describe as appearing in Game of Thrones. My brothers and I would rail against such a dull and lengthy excursion. I mean, who’d want to go to a stupid harbour when you could go to such destinations as the Jet Centre, Coleraine swimming pool, or McIntyre’s toy shop? Now I am my mother, and my kids are me. As it should be, I suppose.

But Ballintoy didn’t work out this year. The car park, which had always been geared towards road rage, had got even smaller due to construction, so we just had to turn around and leave.

Not far outside Ballycastle, I spotted what looked like a viewing point and swerved off the road. I’m a sucker for a good viewing point, and I got out of the car, on my own, to do some viewing. This one, Portaneevy, has fun little platforms which hover over the abyss. There were busloads of French, American, and Japanese tourists, but I managed to get a spot and peer down over Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

Were my eyes up to their old tricks? No, they weren’t.

‘Dolphins! I think those are dolphins down there!’ I exclaimed to a woman beside me, with my arm out in a very straight point. A white tour boat was close to the sea stack of the rope bridge, and all around the boat, the water was breaking with dolphins. From up here, they were tiny, but dolphin excitement is dolphin excitement, no matter how close they are.  

Thankfully this English-sounding lady was as excited as me and did not drift silently away from me as I worried she might. We ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ some more, and then she thanked me sincerely for letting her know, and complained jokily to her local friend who, incredibly, had seen the dolphins but said nothing. ‘This nice gentleman had to tell me!’

Buoyed by the joy of dolphins and being described as a nice gentleman, I entered Ballycastle. We rarely go there (it’s even further from Portstewart than Castlerock!) but my friend Jin was in the Corrymeela Centre and I was going to pop up and say hello. In an earlier blog post, I had suggested that Ballycastle was much less grim than Portrush and Portstewart, and floated the idea, noted by someone else, that the grimness of the Ports was due to their lack of trees. And perhaps here was the theory confirmed: Ballycastle has trees, a few at the sea front. A green landscape is also clearly visible from the town. So the lesson is that if you are a town and don’t want to depress your residents, you should plant trees. 

We covered all our regular haunts too. I enjoyed my petty feeling of exclusivity as our National Trust cards were bleeped again and again on Portstewart Strand; we had our usual orders in usual chip shops. I guess most people want to cling to a place that they recognise, and that they think recognises them back. But it’s great to find that your place still has a few tricks up its sleeve.