We often find ourselves browsing classified websites looking to buy our own campervan or even make one from an old work van but our budget is extremely tight. We always felt that a VW transporter camper would have suited us best, as most of our adventures are done around mountain areas and the beauty of this sort of camper is that it will allow you to park anywhere to stay the night.

We previously hired a campervan before from www.Lazydays.ie and we immediately got hooked but after researching the cost to buy this type of campervan, we just could not spend that kind of money on a luxury item, so we needed another plan.

(Plan B) Our Retro Tent Camper

Gina’s dad bought a tent camper in 1980 and used it for a few road trips with her and her siblings. The kids all grew up and the campervan was demoted to a corner of the garage. Gina’s dad is a man that takes great pride in his vehicles and always keeps his cars spotlessly clean and the same applied to the camper. He thinks the camper went into storage in the mid-90s and was took out in the late 2000s for a kids party for Gina. Unfortunately, at the party a few too many kids jumped on one of the beds and broke the sliding rails, we needed to fix this. The broken sliding rail and a small bit of stitching on the tarps are all that is needed to make the camper useable again. If we could fix both of these things the camper would be immaculate.

We wheeled the camper out of the garage and into the daylight, we think this was the first time it was outside in 20 years. The first thing we noticed, was that the camper body is amazingly clean. We put down the trailer legs to stabilise the body, then we erected the roof using the roller handle.

We pulled out the bed on one side and the sliding rail, after attaching, zipping and joining all the sections of the camper together now we could fully assess all the previous damage. From our initial inspection, we could see the missing aluminium slider was the only thing really stopping us from using the camper. I ordered a new slider rail from an American website that owns the “Coleman Camper” franchise but unfortunately, the supplier does not ship to Ireland, can you believe that!!!

We did a temporary fix with some metal bars and bolts to stop the bed from pivoting off the frame of the camper. As we are in the middle of a heat wave in Ireland, we didn’t even attempt to fix the damaged stitching on the tarps. We did buy new tires for €130 and a cylinder of gas for €30. So we essentially have a camper ready to use for the grand total of €160 and a few bruised knuckles.

Ourlittlehiker testing the new bed base

Our Retro Camper holiday

As we are still in the middle of doing the 32 County high point challenge we decided to have a few days holidays in County Sligo and County Donegal. While we were over in the west of Ireland we may as well climb the county high points. As this was our maiden voyage with the camper, we decided to drive to Sligo first as it was only 3 hours away in the car.

Neither of us had any experience with towing another vehicle, so we took great care attempting this drive. We stopped every 35-40 minutes continuously checking to make sure everything was alright with the trailer and basically checking to see if it was still there. We eventually arrived in Sligo, now all we had to do was find a campsite. The first campsite was full, we were getting nervous now. Luckily The second campsite still had parking spaces, thankfully.

We stayed at Strandhill caravan and camping and it cost €24 per night without electricity. It was interesting trying to survive without electricity for 4 days but fun trying to figure out how to charge our devices.

Strandhill Campsite

When we arrived at Strandhill campsite the only area left to park our camper was a green area beside a carpark and apartment block, not ideal but we did have a 30-second walk to the beach. We reversed into our space (this took us about 30 manoeuvres) but eventually we got into position.

Now the real test started, erecting the tent without Gina’s dad giving me verbal instructions. Amazingly enough, I must have been listening to him when he initially showed me how to erect the tent, as I had it fully upright within 20 minutes. Now that we had a home for the night, we could start to explore the area and get some food.

The campsite is situated perfectly beside the small village and the beach. We really enjoyed walking down to the nice restaurants in the evenings while also been only 5 minutes away from our camper. Ourlittlehiker loved exploring the beach and making sand castles, this was her first time doing this, especially in 30 degrees heat. We used this campsite as a base to hike Sligo and Leitrim highest points, Truskmore, which was a 50-minute drive away.

Unfortunately, we found 2 pretty big negatives about Strandhill campsite:

1. We could not get the keys to work for the toilets and showers, they would work for the women’s toilets but not for the men’s toilets.
2. Our location on the site was maybe a poor choice and we probably didn’t have anywhere else to stay so maybe we shouldn’t complain about this but there was were noisy neighbours beside the campsite.

We only stayed in Strandhill Campsite for one night as we couldn’t stay any longer due to the noise from the apartments and carpark. After hiking Truskmore mountain we came back to the campsite and packed up the camper.

We were back on the road driving to our new destination, Donegal.

Killybegs Campsite

I would say we are a family that love keeps moving and we would generally never return to previously visited holiday locations but we stayed at this campsite in 2016 and it was amazing, so we decided to visit it again. The campsite is in Killybegs and was only 1 hour 15 minutes drive away from our current location in Sligo, so we plugged in the coordinates and started our road trip for Killybegs Donegal.

We arrived at the campsite and was immediately greeted by a familiar friendly face. The owner works at the gate and I’m 100% sure he did not recognise us but we told him that we stayed here in 2016 and we had a pleasant chat and he told us all the information about the campsite that we needed to know. We drove down to park up the camper and thankfully the campsite was very similar to what we remembered previously. The only notable difference was, that the owner had expanded slightly since we were here previously. He had added in additional parking bays further down the hill. This was a massive bonus for us as we would have more privacy.

We parked in the second lowest bay and set up the camper again. 20 minutes later we had a home again, I’m getting good at his now. We did a quick walk around the campsite to check to see were the toilets like similar in condition to our last visit. They were BETTER, the toilets at this campsite are probably the best toilets that we have ever used, anywhere. They seem to be cleaned and filled up every 30 minutes, it is a true credit to the owner how well he keeps the toilets, I think its the small things that make me happy.

The views from this campsite are simply amazing, we look right over Killybegs bay. We parked our camper in such a way to wake up looking at the views in the morning. Where parked our camper sandwiched between some very expensive campervans but thankfully we all had at least 30 meters between each other. The campsite has its own private lagoon, that has crystal clear water which felt like the perfect temperature. Killybegs campsite was pure heaven and a total gem, we loved it here.

We have planned to use Killybegs campsite as a base to explore the Slieve League cliffs and the climb Errigal Mountain.

Slieve League Cliffs Donegal

We woke up nice and early for our first morning in Killybegs campsite. We got the stove and gas working and had a nice sausage breakfast and coffee while enjoying the amazing views looking over the bay below. The peace and quiet at the campsite was pure heaven.

Slieve League was a 30-minute drive away so we were in no rush today. We decided that we were going to take a break from hiking and do some tourist sightseeing. The road below the campsite has a big sign pointing for Slive League, so we just hoped in the car and decided to follow it. This quite possibly wasn’t the brightest idea, we quickly became lost and we couldn’t get a signal on our phones to download google maps. We missed a signpost in the town of Carrick to turn left off the Wild Atlantic way road. After a small detour and us retracing our original route we eventually found the right road to Slieve League cliffs.

We arrived up at the lower car parks for Slive League cliffs, not realising that the gate that was closed over on the road and it could actually be opened and you can drive the whole way to the cliffs. We parked our car in the carpark and started our walk up the hill to Slieve League. The road walk to the attraction is about 1.5km and provides some amazing views, this is well worth doing. Be careful on this section of road as there is only a small area to stand in to allow cars past and some car drivers don’t seem to be aware of the dangers.

On our walk up to Slieve League, it became very obvious that there was an ice cream shop at the viewing point. The knowledge of ice cream spurred us on to reach the top of the road. When we reached the viewing point we all got some ice creams and admired the outstanding cliff views of Slive League. Gina and Ourlittlehiker were loving the ice cream and they disappeared very quickly with the 30-degree heat overhead.

Slieve League Cliff walk

While sitting looking at the Cliffs we saw that a lot of the other people were walking up to the top of the cliffs. The path to the top of Slieve League looked in good condition, we decided to tackle a small hike, after all, we are on a hiking holiday. The slive league cliff walk was quite easy and in a short distance up the cliffs, we had left the crowds behind and were pretty amazing panoramic views of the cliffs below.

We walked to the top of the ridge and decided it wasn’t worth going any further as we were at the highest point at this stage and the views wouldn’t have improved plus the heat was far too hot for pale Irish people. On top of the cliffs, the crowds dwindled massively and we felt that we had far more privacy to soak in the amazing sights of the oceans, wildlife and obviously the cliff.

We sat at the top and decided that we would indulge ourselves and get another ice cream for our walk back down the road, sure why not we were on holidays.

We loved the Slive League cliff walk and would highly recommend it to other holidaymakers looking for good tourist attractions in Donegal. If the weather is bad or you are not able to walk long distances just open the gate on the main road and drive up to the Slieve League Cliff viewing point. Slive League cliffs are a must-see attraction when you are visiting Donegal, just remember to download your google maps for offline viewing as the phone signal is poor in most of the rural towns of Donegal.

Hiking Errigal Mountain Donegal

Unfortunately, we left to climb Errigal mountain until our last day in Donegal and the weather changed drastically, when we reached the mountain there was a low fog hanging over half the mountain and the wind was quite strong even at the base. We hiked halfway up the mountain and decided the conditions were far too poor, so we turned around and cut our losses. We were sad at the time that we had to abandon our hike but we both felt that we made the right move and the safest move for our little family.

Our thoughts on our first Retro camper holiday

We loved our first holiday with the retro camper. We have even decided to go on a small weekend away in Kilkenny the next weekend that we have free. This is a great way to see Ireland, as most of the campsites are only €24 and the peace and quiet in these locations are better than any hotel room. We are looking forward to all our new adventures in our new (old) camper.

The post Retro Camper Holiday Ireland appeared first on Our Family Hikes.

Northern Ireland is in the top northern section of Ireland. The Island of Ireland is separated into two countries, the Republic of Ireland (26 Counties) and Northern Ireland (6 Counties). Northern Ireland belongs to the United Kingdom but it still has its own soccer team similar to Scotland and Wales.

Road Tripping to Northern Ireland top attractions

As we live in the South of Ireland and our house is 4 hours from the main attractions in Northern Ireland, we needed to plan a road trip. We are used to these long driving expeditions, as we are currently undertaking the 32 counties high point challenge (See here).

Preparation for our road trip consists of doing a large grocery shop in our local supermarket for picnics and loads of small breaks. Packing all our hiking and adventure gear and having the car fully stocked for an early start on the morning of the road trip.

Our drive to northern Ireland starts at 5 am on a Saturday morning, we all wake and quickly prepare for the drive. Ourlittlehiker is getting used the early starts and loves a good drive, as she knows at the end she is going on a big adventure. Our road trip consisted of Ourlittlehiker sleeping for 3 hours straight then a small break for snacks and to stretch our legs, then a sing-song for the final hour. You cannot beat a good road trip to build up excitement on the way to Northern Ireland’s top attractions.

Northern Ireland top attractions

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

Our honeymoon in 2015

We previously visited Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge on our honeymoon in 2015, so we knew what was ahead of us but we were still super excited. Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge is in the County of Antrim and in the small coastal town of Ballintoy.

The Northern Ireland rope bridge opens at 9:30 am. We arrived at Carrick-a-rede car park at 10 am and the carpark already seemed very busy, car parking in Carrick-A-Rede is free. Our main goal here was to try to get to the rope bridge early to try and beat any possible large queue to cross the bridge.

We all quickly changed our clothes (it was a long drive) and had a small snack and walked down toward the ticket office to buy our tickets to cross the bridge.

How much does it cost to cross Carrick a Rede rope bridge?

The Tickets to walk over the rope bridge cost £8.00 per adult and £4 for a child but Ourlittlehiker was free as she is still a baby.

Walking up to Carrick A Rede Rope Bridge’s ticket office

How long is the walk to Carrick a Rede rope bridge?

The walk from the Carrick-a-rede ticket office to the rope bridge is slightly over 1km but the surface of the footpath is extremely good. The walk to the rope bridge was filled with small footbridges over gorges, viewing points with telescopes and nice seating areas to admire the pure beauty of the cliffs below.

We met many older people walking the footpath to the rope bridge and they all seemed to be struggling slightly with the steep steps on the final section of the footpath descending down to the entrance of Carrick-a-rede. The Map below here shows the sections that have the stepped areas.

The Map of Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Carrick a rede rope bridge walk

As we approached the rope bridge we walked down to the entrance of the bridge that has a National Trust Employee checking tickets and that also ensures that only 8 people cross the bridge at one time.

Gina carried Ourlittlehiker in her Deuter backpack for half the walk from the ticket office to the rope bridge, Ourlittlehiker loves being independent lately and has started to walk small safe sections of our trails. We love looking at the excitement in Ourlittlehikers eyes at all the great attraction she gets to explore with us.

We were really lucky and only had to wait to cross the bridge for 2 minutes (this is why we tried to be here early). After the gated entrance, we walked down an extremely steep steel bridge to the start of the rope bridge. The Steel steps are very steep and you will need to hold onto the railing with both hands.

Our first impression of the bridge and crossing onto the island was the scale of the sheer depth of the drop (30m high) and as you would expect, the high standard of maintenance to the bridge, everything on the bridge looks brand new and super safe. While walking over I still kept thinking I was going to trip up and fall from being super clumsy.

Gina carried Ourlittlehiker over the rope bridge and she looked very nervous. I can’t blame her for being nervous because the bridge was swaying in the wind. But it was great fun walking onto Carrick a rede island using the rope bridge and after the adrenaline wore off we were ready to walk back over to the mainland again. We did a small bit of bird watching on the Island but Ourlittlehiker is more interested in sheep at the minute, so we couldn’t keep her attention looking at the birds for too long.

When we were walking back over the rope bridge the wind seemed to pick up slightly, so poor gina and Ourlittlehiker got blown around a little bit more on the return walk to the mainland. As we were walking back out past the entrance gate to the bridge we noticed about a 15-minute queue to get onto the island, so come early to avoid the ques.

We walked back to the main ticket office and got a certificate free of charge from the lovely staff in the office to say that Ourlittlehiker walked over the bridge. The certificate also meant that we got a free Hot chocolate in the Cafe. She also got a free book with “50 things to do before you turn 11 1/3” by the national trust.

Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge Verdict

This is a great tourist attraction and it is easy to see how this is one of Northern Ireland’s top tourist attractions. We loved the rope bridge but we were very lucky with the weather and the crowds were very small when we were there.

• We highly recommend this when visiting Northern Ireland as this is truly one of Northern Ireland’s top Attractions.
• Remember to look for your free Certificate for your child, and hot chocolate ;)

The Giants Causeway- Northern Ireland top attractions

After leaving Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, we drove to the Giants Causeway. This took us around 20 minutes because we stopped a couple of times to admire the beautiful scenery along the coastal road. This is regarded as one of Northern Ireland’s top attractions by many people.

The Giant’s Causeway Facts

The Giants Causeway is in the County of Antrim and beside the town of Bushmills, that is also famous for its Whiskey (the Whiskey tours here are very good). The Giants Causeway rock formation was formed because of volcanic activity around 50 million years ago. Folklore stories suggest that the Giant Finn Mac Cool built the causeway to fight a Scottish giant, this is the story we told Ourlittlehiker, the volcanic stuff can wait for another time.

The Giants Causeway Visitor Centre is one of Northern Ireland top attractions

The Giants Causeway has a large car park that is fully attended by helpful staff to direct you to unoccupied spaces. The visitor centre is built into the side of the hill and is very conspicuously concealed, it has a lovely green roof (my construction lecturer would be proud that I remembered that) and stone columns on the side giving it an appearance of the unique rock formation at the sea, which is pretty cool.

It cost £11.50 each per adult to park at the visitor and to enter the visitor centre. It is actually free to walk down to the Giants Causeway but the whole area and facilities at the Giants Causeway are definitely some of the best on the island of Ireland in terms of tourist amenities, so I do not mind paying for better quality facilities.

We did our usual quick look around the visitor centre and went straight out to the main tourist attraction. We walked out into an area that had a queue for a bus that delivers people from the visitor centre to the Giants Causeway attraction.

As we love a good hike, we walked down the road towards the sea, about 20 meters down the road, we saw the rock that marked Giants Causeway. We loved the walk down the road to the Giants Causeway, we walked along the side of the road on a tarmac footpath but as it was sunny out, the footpath was very crowded and we sometimes had to step onto the road. This was not the safest option as the bus drivers delivering tourist’s down to the Causeway seemed to drive pretty hard, so keep an eye out for this if you walk down,

We quickly reached the start of the Giants Causeway, the rock formation on the coastline is an amazing sight. We walked down toward the sea to get a few pictures but the crowds were pretty big in every direction we turned so we decided to walk back toward the higher section of the volcanic rocks.

After hanging around for 10 minutes trying to get some space from the growing crowds we finally got a nice picture. We were on a pretty tight time schedule as we had only budgeted enough time to walk down to the Northern Ireland top attraction and then walk back to the car but we decided we would try to get a quick hike in while we were here at the causeway.

The Giants Causeway Hiking trails

Views from the Giants Causeway Cliff walk

We decided to hike the “Red Trail” up over the top of the hill behind the giant’s causeway. The trail starts by following the edge of Port Noffer along a gravel track, which then starts to rise until we reached a Y in the path. The path that we followed was signposted for 162 steps which cut through the side of the Giants causeway cliff. The views from here are amazing.

The path rises really quickly and the steps are very manageable. There are really good handrails on the sides of the steps and rest stops, so we reached the top of the Red trial really quickly. When we reached the top of the path we noticed that the majority of the crowd stay down at the coastline of the giant’s causeway and don’t venture up into the hill, so it was really nice to get breathing room to chat and play with Ourlittlehiker.

The path on the top of the Giants Causeway Red trail hike was flooded with lovely yellow Gorse flowers that gave off an amazing smell of coconut. It was lovely walking along the cliff edge looking down at the Giants Causeway with a lovely smell of Coconut in the air.

When we reached the peak of the hill we could look right down on to the Giants Causeway and the views of the coastline were simply amazing. It’s a pity that more people do not walk this trail when they are visiting this tourist attraction. As for us, we feel this provided the best views along the Giants Causeway coastline.

We continued along the trail which now had sheep on one side and Coconut smelling flowers on the other. The trail was leading us back toward the visitor centre and within 10 minutes we were back at the visitor centre. When we walked into the visitor centre, we took Ourlittlehiker out of her bag and she was loving all the animated Giants on the big screens and the cartoons.

Ourlittlehiker enjoying the movie

The Giants Causeway Verdict

The Giants Causeway is one of northern Ireland top attractions, and it deserves to be as well. Okay, they charge you to access the visitor centre and neglect to tell you that it’s actually free to walk down to the Giants Causeway. The visitor centre cost is a little bit pricey too, I do not mind paying for a good experience and good facilities but I felt we only spent 10 minutes here and the rest of the time down at the Giants Causeway.

The crowds at this attraction are massive and way bigger than we had expected, many of the tourists here seemed to forget basic manners and would nearly push you out of the way to get a photograph.

If you are visiting the Giants Causeway consider walking the “Red Trial” to get the best views and some space to soak in the beauty of the Giants Causeway.

Slieve Donard Mountain Hike

We previously hiked Slieve Donard, see here for some hiking tips. If you are into good mountain hikes or even amazing mountain views, this hike is located in the town of Newcastle and is one Northern Ireland’s top attractions and it’s totally free. This is the best hike in Northern Ireland. Slieve Donard is the highest mountain in Ulster and Northern Ireland. The views on this hike are amazing, the Woodland trails run parallel to a river and waterfalls and the pathway provides a perfectly safe access route to the mountain peak. This hike will take 3-5 hours to walk but it is worth every second.

Family Friendly Accommodation in Northern Ireland

Glamping

After we did all our exploring around Northern Ireland, we were ready to check into our Glamping accommodation. Our Glamping site was called Carrowmena activity centre and was located near Limavady. This suited us perfectly as we were going to hike a County high point near here the following day. The Glamping site is situated on an old school grounds in the centre of the local town.

We booked into the Glamping site 1 week previous to our arrival, as we were over 4 hours drive away from our house. We were really lucky to get the last available Bell tent in the campsite. It cost £70 to stay in the Bell tent for the night, the tent has 2 single beds and 1 double bed so potentially sleeps, 4 people. The Northern Ireland Glamping experience was Ourlittlehikers first time in a tent and she loved it, I’m not too sure if it was that the bed were at perfect height for her to run and jump onto or she simply just loved the tent but she laughed for 1 hour straight, so that made us two very happy parents.

Like many campsites, the Carrowmena glamping site had a shared a kitchen, shower and toilets with the other glampers, for us, this makes the experience even more fun. All the kids at the campsite were all running around laughing and joking all night. We have stayed in a lot of campsites and Carrowmena has possibly the nicest, most polite staff we have ever met. The staff could not have been any more helpful and super informative.

Carrowmena Activity Centre Verdict

Carrowmena Glamping gets a 10 out of 10 for the staff alone, we will be coming back here the next time we are in Northern Ireland hiking and camping.

Thank you.

The post Northern Ireland Top Attractions appeared first on Our Family Hikes.