The General's Diary: There once was an Irishman, an ipad and a satnav..........the Irishman said, 'don't take that road over there', the ipad said 'no connection' and the satnav said 'recalculating'.

The time in Belfast had given us a wonderful start to our Irish adventure. We'd spent a great night out in an Irish bar watching Ireland play Sth Africa, Rugby of course.The place was full of of ex rugby players and Chris had the opportunity to shake the hand that had once shaken the 'Real McCaw's hand. The atmosphere had been electric, Ireland put up an amazing fight and lost by only a few points.

I've met an incredible number of teachers since leaving Australia - they're everywhere. That night there were both Scottish and Irish teachers in the bar. As you'd expect they all have the same familiar story to tell, about how much they love their job.

The next day we caught up with a Belfast couple whom we had got to know in Scotland. Lovely Irish, hospitality, they took us to some magic places and showed us some wonderful sights. I think their warmth and generosity will be one of my enduring memories of Ireland and not least of all that fabulous Irish Coffee they made.

Then, it came time to hit the road again. Readers may sense some trepidation in my voice here.

Paddy the proprietor of the All Seasons had given us the 'good oil' on the way to go and what to see.
The sat nav lady, before we left, gave us the benefit of a circuit tour of Belfast, I think she didn't want us to miss anything. Once was good, twice was ok and after 3 times, I decided to get out the ipad.

However once on the road up north and watching the fantastic scenery all was forgiven and the satnav lady once again became a knowledgeable and trusted driving companion. Even Paddy had redeemed himself in our eyes. The detour that he told us about was awesome - a winding drive on a cliff edge overlooking the Irish Sea.

The rope bridge at Carrick-A-Rede and the Giants Causeway were well worth the visit and by the time we'd made our way through both, it was getting dark.

A quick stop at a pub and a look at the ipad to find a place to stay and then we were on our way again, having typed the latest directions into the satnav.

An hour later, after travelling down many dark lanes, we were back at the same pub, how did that happen? I grabbed the ipad as it had come to our rescue before. This time up flashed 'No connection'. We were now in the deep North, not Belfast with the benefits of great internet coverage.

There's always a silver lining so they say- if we hadn't got lost we would never have discovered that great B & B, but that's a story for a another blog.

Next day, somewhere along the way, I mentioned in passing to Chris that I hadn't heard the satnav lady say 'Where possible make a U turn'.

No 1 Tip to all travellers using satnavs in a foriegn country,
if you want to avoid going round in circles;-

Never ever turn off the U turn option in the settings menu.