Exploring Exploris!

During January, we hired a car (they call it car hire rather than rental car here) and went to Bob and Kath's Sat, enjoyed a lovely evening with them (as always - great food and great company!), stayed over, and then drive south of them to Strangford on Sunday to check out "seal rock," took the short ferry across Strangford Lough to Portaferry where there is a small aquarium, and then drove back to Belfast along the eastern side of the Lough. Map here: http://goo.gl/maps/OKQr6

Yep, the boys love it at Bob and Kath's - all sorts of fun!

Unfortunately, the tide was in, so we didn't see any seals in their natural environment before getting on the ferry, but the ferry ride was delightful, if short (only 10 min), especially since the weather was great (sunny).

View of Portaferry from the ferry.

The aquarium, called Exploris, was also very fun. For those of you thinking about the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, stop now - this is a small building run by naturalists, takes 2-3 hours tops to do and see everything. But, it is charming. Website here: http://www.exploris.org.uk/. And, they have some lovely displays, including a few pools with rays and starfish and small sharks that the kids can touch. Course, before touching the animals, the kids have to show amazing patience by listening for a LONG time to a naturalist tell them all about the "beasties" - ha! He was an amazing font of knowledge, but didn't seem to recognize that his audience has an attention span of 10 min (if lucky)! Anyway... the best part? They take in wounded and sick seals and nurse them back to health and then release them. We saw a handful of these seals in little quarantine rooms being cared for, as well as another handful out playing in their outdoor enclosure/pool. VERY fun! They also had activities for the kids like crayon rubbings, coloring, dress-up play, etc...

Yep, that is a pic of Jamie FREAKING out about a scary statue! Mean parents...

Then, the drive back to Belfast along the eastern side of the Lough was absolutely stunning. SO beautiful. We have only hired a car a handful of times so far, but we are realizing that now that we are already half-way through our time in N IRE, we better start being tourists! Here are some more pix of the day!

Weird tree for N Ireland, right?