Banbridge - Portadown

Banbridge to Portadown

Bear right at Banbridge.  This is the monument to local explorer Francis Crozier.  He also gave his name to a crater on the Moon.

We left the town via the muddy Huntly Wood.  No path but no problem to Brian.

It was wet today, so plenty of excuses for a coffee stop.  There's nothing quite like being happy at work; this is Mary, in her smashing cafe - Gilberry Fayre. 

Well known sports journalist Dave McKibbin interviews a future star of NI running.

Time for some culture...  The memorial in Tullylish Church to the grandfather of WB Yeats, who was rector there.  Yeats Junior the poet once wrote: 'Tread softly because you tread on my dreams'.  Not easy when you are wearing size 12 muddy running shoes.  

The old football pitch in Gilford. It is claimed that Mancester City legend Bert Trautmann used to play here when he was housed in a local PoW camp in 1945.  

  
Gilford Mill - this place produced over £1m worth of linen in 1866.  That was serious money back then.

Don't know who benefited from all that money but it certainly wasn't these bare-footed mill children.

Dunbarton House home of  the Gilford Mill owners.  JEP McMaster left this house to become England's worst ever test cricketer.  He played one match and only lasted one ball - that was the full story of his career.

Moyallon Quaker meeting house.  A wonderful old building once visited by Elizabeth Fry the great social reformer and member of the chocolate family.  Today it was visited by two wet old gits.

Moyallon House where, according to Michael Gray's book 'Blood Relative', Tsarevich Alexei stayed after escaping Russia. 

The Bann in Portadown.  Long ago, you could have taken a boat from here to Wales, via the Newry Canal and Irish Sea.  We just went home by train, via two more coffee shops.