LONDONDERRY TO BALLYMENA

When the weather is bad, cycle tourists adapt. Today in Derry, the wind howled. We decided to use the excellent cycle routes this morning and head off to find out more of this little city.
Here is an excellent cafe, ideal for cyclists

This is a bicycle

Here is the cafe behind the bicycle

This is an art shop depicting some recent history

We spent 2 hours this morning at the Tower Museum. This proved to be an fascinating display showing Derry's long history going back over a 1,000 years.
Despite really aweful weather, I just had to take an image of the excellent developing cycling infrastructure here (sorry for the rain drops)

I am glad that Dagmar and I had the opportunity to see a little more of Derry than time previously permitted. It appears to be a vibrant city and maybe it should feature on every cycle touring itinerary to Ireland? It also has trains that carry lots of bikes so you could start your tour of the North West Trail from here. The Trail is just a few miles down NCN92 with easy access from the train station.
Our revised plan because of cancellation of ferry sailings from Ballycastle is to take the P+O ferry from Larne to Troon. We caught the train to Ballymena for an overnight stop but our 2 mile ride on level pavement was made at just 4mph because of the strength of the wind. It is 30 miles on NCN97 from Ballymena to Larne, enough time for tomorrow's 4pm sailing. The only problem is that P+O has cancelled its sailings for the last two days.
Our train was really comfortable and modern with spaces for many bikes but our arrival at Ballymena brought us to a cyclist's complete nightmare. Not only was the wind howling but we were in a downpour. This was not all as there were no cycle paths and the narrow road was completely full with traffic. We gritted our teeth and set forth litterally into a gale. Fortunately our hotel was only 1 mile away and the receptionist smiled at two very wet cyclist.
We only cycled 7 miles today