They say that walking is good for helping people sleep. Well, if that’s true, then I should pass out easily
and sleep well tonight as I put in three hours of intense walking today, mostly
going the wrong direction, and another hour touring the Walled City of Londonderry.
The day began with advice received yesterday from locals on which
way was north. They had no idea, but
assured me that the direction in which my finger was pointing was, in fact, the
direction of the City Centre. And so
began my first attempt to walk to the City Centre. I hiked down the hill from the university to
the Strand Road and turned left. Fifteen
minutes later, as I ascended a hill that never seemed to end, I stopped to rest
at a bus stop for folks going the other direction. There, I met a lovely older woman named May
who, after a short chat, informed me that 1) I was no longer on the Strand
Road; 2) the City Centre was in the opposite direction of the way I was going,
and 3) I was in luck, because a bus would be arriving soon at that very stop and
it could take me to the City Centre.
And so it did. Sort
of. The bus stopped at the bottom of the
steepest hill I had had the pleasure of walking so far. I was hoping the bus would take me closer to
my destination, but when the driver shut off the engine, and all of the
passengers, except me, exited the bus, I knew I was out of luck. Not being exactly sure where I was, I asked
the driver for directions to Bishop Street.
He pointed up the hill and assured me that near the top I would find
Bishop Street. And he was right.
Arriving at the Peace and Reconciliation Group office, I
apologized for my tardiness while humorously describing my morning’s
antics. My supervisor was understanding
and provided me with several points of advice should I ever wish to try walking
again. Apparently, I missed the finer
details of his advice as my walking home trip in the afternoon turned into a
two-hour endurance test combined with a refusal to bail myself out by calling a
cab or taking a bus.
Specifically, after slowly and carefully navigating down the steep
hill away from the City Centre, I turned right and began enjoying a leisurely
walk along the River Foyle. I was
delighted to get my first real look at the Peace Bridge, but decided I would
walk it another day as I didn’t want to tire myself out for the walk home. Ah, the irony. After about 30 minutes of walking, I noticed
a sign indicating that I was on the Foyle Road.
This wasn’t right. I was supposed
to be on the Queen’s Quay (pronounced quee). It was time to pull out the map and
review my progress. As you may have
guessed, I had gone the wrong way. And
so, I turned around, walked back past the steep hill leading to the City Centre, past
the Peace Bridge, and onward the rest of the way home.
In my next installment, I will explain (and provide a video) about
the city’s extensive use of roundabouts, and how everyone who drives them has no
problem, but for newcomers, they can be very disorienting. I really believe this is why I turned the
wrong way. The bus ride in, which
included going through a number of roundabouts, must have messed up my sense of
direction. That’s my story anyway and
I’m sticking to it.
Perhaps the main thing I discovered today was that the locals drive cars everywhere they go and, therefore, consider everything to be close and
convenient. What they don’t seem to
realize is how different the experience is for someone traveling on
foot.
