Belfast to Newtown Stewart by ferry and bike

June 22, 2025

OK, we didn't actually land in Stranraer as this route shows. We started several km north of there in Cairnryan.

Last night at dinner, while we were eating overcooked chicken in a boxty, we had a briefing about the following day’s plan. The plan was to ride 8 km to the Belfast Harbor and catch the 11:30 ferry to Cairnryan, Scotland, disembark there at 2 pm and ride 43 km to Newton Stewart. We would begin the Scottish part of our adventure!

The challenge: The weather forecast for Sunday afternoon was 100 percent chance of rain, localized heavier rainfall possible, half an inch of rain expected and winds 15 to 25 mph. This scared us. When I saw the forecast I madly did some additional research: (1) Was it possible to take public transportation to Newton Stewart from the ferry port? (2) If not, was it possible to spend the night in Cairnryan, (the ferry harbor town) and defer the ride to Newton Stewart until the following day? (3) If it was possible to do (2) what would that do to our schedule? We were due into Glasgow on Tuesday.

My research determined: (1) There is only bus transport from the ferry to Newtown Stewart and the bus company does not accept bikes; (2) It WAS possible to stay near Cainryan Sunday night. If we did that we would have to blow off our booked and paid for hotel in Newton Stewart; (3) If we did (2) we could ride to Newtown Stewart a day late and then the following day get to Glasgow by using a combination of a long bike ride followed by the train at the end of the ride. ScotRail allowed bikes on this line with no reservation. But it would be a long, full day.

So, I assured Dave that if we got off the ferry and the weather was terrible we could adequately pivot. We were somewhat more anxious due to the issues with his knee and the fact that much of the route to Newton Stewart was on a main road. Riding in the rain can be a pain, but it is worse if you have to contend with traffic. We also acknowledged to each other that we tend to get overly concerned about stuff- and then it all works out!

When we awoke the forecast was somewhat improved - still rainy but not consistently. We had an 8 km ride to the Belfast harbor from Tara Lodge: it was cloudy and spit a bit but there was no traffic because it was Sunday morning so it was a fun ride. We reached the Stena Ferry line in plenty of time for our 11:30 departure and then there was the usual fussing around. There were only four bikes on our ferry and we got conflicting directions from the Stena Lines staff on where to sit, what would happen, where to stand etc. But there was plenty of staff and they were all nice and we eventually boarded and were all told to put our bikes inside an office on the ferry. Which goes to show how few bikes they get on this ferry.

Jill and a fellow cyclist boarding the ferry.

Unlike bicycles, the ferry gets plenty of motorcycles:

Only four bicycles on board, but there were lots of motorcycles.

By now we had enough interactions with the Scottish staff to realize we were going to have more trouble with the Scottish accent than the Irish one. It was apparent they were used to us (Americans) because they patiently repeated themselves with no surprise or irritation .

It was only a two and a half hour trip on the ferry and I had not booked special seats for us, or so I thought. When we got up to the public passenger lounge we sat down (it was noisy) and noticed a “Hygge Lounge” across the hall. This jogged my Memory. When we checked in, the lady at the counter had handed me a card. I couldn't really understand much of what she was saying about it, and I was more worried about where to go and where to put our bikes, honestly, but I suddenly remembered that she given me some sort of pass in addition to my boarding ticket. I pulled it out, and it was a card with the code to the Hygge Lounge. I showed it to the lady in charge of guarding the Hygge Lounge and she asked if we had gotten an upgrade to the Hygge Lounge. I said I had no idea and she said go ahead and go in, and we did. I think by my complete lack of recall (and perhaps my questionable cycling appearance), she didn't think that we could have possibly paid for the right to be there, but later after we got settled in some awesomely comfortable Hygge lounge chairs, I checked my ticket. In fact I had purchased for a modest sum the right to sit in the Hygge Lounge. Weirdly I had neglected to purchase the right for Dave to sit there so it was a bonus that the lady let us both in. (In my defense, booking on the Stena ferry was challenging; the Stena booking site was down for about a month so I resorted to a third party booking site and it was just a messy process all together.) We got free coffee and tea and a quiet environment and easy access to outlets for charging our phones.

The hygge Lounge which allowed us to avoid mixing with the hoi polloi. Of course, I probably didn't have the right to be there. 😳

Unlike our disembarking adventure in Rosslare Harbor a month ago we were able to find our bikes in the office with no drama and the cool thing was that we were at the very front of the ferry. We felt we needed to kit up down to our rain booties and so we did.

Jill kitting out to brave the anticipated rain storm.

Dave was the very first passenger off the ferry. I was second. Nobody ever checked our passports nor was there any kind of border check, both of which we had expected given that this supposedly was a hard border. The way out of the ferry terminal was long and confusing with dozens of large trucks on our tail. As I'll explain in a minute, Komoot couldn't show how to begin our route. We had to do some creative navigation to get to our planned route. We just really needed to carefully watch signs and ride as hard as we could to get out of the ferry terminal as quick as we could. There was some effort to accommodate cyclists and pedestrian with a narrow cycle lane for a mile or so which helped a bit.

After that, we pulled over, and evaluated where we were. In this case our exit confusion was aggravated by the fact that I was thinking we were getting off at Stanraer (another town in the same harbor) rather than Cainryan so I had mapped a route from Stanraer. Besides adding confusion to our process that mistake also added 9 km to the ride. It was past 2 pm and we now had 50 km to ride rather than 42. But it all worked out in the end.

After all our angst over the projected storm, it had come and gone before 2 pm. The staff at our hotel later that evening said that it had poured around 1 pm. But for us, the weather was cloudy, with a bit of blue sky, wind, and no rain. We didn’t need our rain booties after all.

A fair amount of the ride was on a busy road, first out of the Harbor and then later the last 20 km was on the A75. We have gotten pretty used to busy roads with no shoulder in Ireland so we didn’t think it was too bad and there were some places we had a larger shoulder (maybe 2 feet). Also, a plus was that the hedges Irish road planners love to place directly adjacent to the shoulder were absent which helped both with site distance and getting a little extra elbow room while you are hugging the shoulder. On the other hand the Scottish road builders installed these elevated reflectors in the shoulder that are a bitch if you ride over them. In between we got some nice cycleways and small roads - for much of the ride we were on the Eurovelo 1.

The storm system was passing as we got started.

We don’t know the history of this viaduct but it was cool

We did have one glitch. We came up a small road to rejoin A75 outside of the town of Glenluce and there was a muddy field with a gate at each end which Komoot claimed we needed to transit. Dave thought it was a no-go and we would have to reroute but I parked and hiked through the field and both gates were closed but not locked so we trudged through using our walk assist function.

Immediately afterwards I thought of the debrief the Grampies gave in a prior journal about cycling in England. There are many mapped cycling routes in England but many gates and turnstiles and other hindrances that make it difficult to make good time. We had our first taste of that.

Newton Stewart was a nondescript little town of about 4,000 folks with a long but not too interesting looking Main Street. Our hotel, on the other hand, Creebridge House, oozed shabby, traditional Scottish charm - once we were able to find it. The hotel was perched on a slope with a big wall around it, with no obvious driveway and only an uphill dirt path through the brick wall as a pedestrian entrance.

The path we had to negotiate in order to get to the inn.

Later we found out there was a driveway up to the hotel but it was a long way around a long block. We never found that particular entrance.

Not being able to locate the driveway, we pushed our bikes up the path. Creebridge House was definitely in our hotel sweet spot. It had seen better days, the floors were uneven, there were stairs all over the place (it would be a terrible place if you had mobility issues) but it was comfortable with an authentic pub, a worthy dining experience, and fine enough rooms (with a tub). We loved it.

After we got our bikes settled in the locked shed and hauled our panniers up a few odd flights of stairs we went down to get a pint in the pub. We had a very nice conversation with Kevin and Kenny, two locals who gave us some sage advice (which we took) about the next day’s route. Kenny had been in the British military (an engineer) and lived all over the world, including in Seattle and in Alberta, Canada (where I grew up) so you can imagine the “what a small world” conversation we had. It was the authentic Scottish pub conversation you just dream about. And their knowledge about the bike routes was pretty helpful to us.

Kevin and Kenny, nice men with good local cycling and whisky knowledge.

Kevin recommended a whisky for Dave - Bladnoch - and he loved it. The distillery was just down the way.

We enjoyed the huge humorous tub in our room. The bathroom was four steps down from the main bedroom which made middle of the night visits to the bathroom (or indeed any visit after any alcohol) a bit risky.

That evening before dinner we got to do a FaceTime call with our son, his spouse and our five year old grandson -it was fun to hear what they are up to on the East Coast (of America). I think they vary between thinking we are doing the coolest thing ever or that we are insane - probably a bit of both.

Dinner that night was braised lamb shank and mint gravy - sounds Scottish now doesn’t it? And with breakfast the next morning I had my first “tattie scone” which tasted like a beignet except that it was savory, not sweet, but which Dave informed me is made of potato flour and deep fried. It doesn’t appear to have any redeeming nutritional value but it was delicious.

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,790 km (1,112 miles)

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Michael HutchingHave enjoyed very much the detail of your Irish adventure, Jill and Dave. Although we’re not so much into tubs, many of your other reflections ring true. I’m interested that you’re using Komoot and that it works reasonably for you because we hope to continue our using it with a Garmin for the first time on a trip later in the year. We’ve only used it on phones up till now. Looking forward to reading more of your travels.
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