A Scally Review - Day 1

16/10. Friday morning. We are up at 6am, shower, breakfast, and a few final touches to the car. The addition of the Scally plate and toy golf clubs to the windscreen wipers look great but unfortunately the damp means that the putting green roof is going to have to wait until we reach the docks for the start, hopefully the drive will dry the roof off a bit. We drive across town to get to the start line. This is our first opportunity to take a closer look at the fellow scalliers cars and there are some great cars. 3 hearse's, a bunch of Merc's, a MK1 Golf, MK2 Golf and 2 Mk3's (including our's), various Japanese models, BMW's and Jag's grace the south docks of Belfast. Now we have time to put the roof on, out comes the doublesided tape, superglue, plastic golf balls, and golf flag. We think it looks great and seems to be stuck down sufficiently. 9am comes and with a blast of the air horn Scally Rally Ireland begins, we collect our daily challenge and directions for the day. Belfast to Ballybofey along the Causeway coastal route, can't wait. As we leave Belfast, the sight of 50-odd bright decorated cars is a definite sight to behold. We are on our way out of Belfast when all of a sudden there is an almighty rip from above - we have lost the putting green!! 10 minutes in and somewhere along the M2 it flies through the air and hits a Peugeot 206 2 cars behind which isn't even taking part in the rally - sorry about that !!. Travelling up the Causeway route is really quite something, the colour and the views are quite awe-inspiring. All the locals are out to witness a convoy of scally cars driving through their little towns and villages, there is much waving and photo-taking going on. We reach our first attraction - the causeway rope bridge which I decide not to cross after last nights debacle. We then get back into the car and travel 6 miles up the road to Giants Causeway itself, now this is some place. A sight to behold, almost mystical and much bigger that I thought it would be. Everyone seems to be enjoying the first stint of the day and we meet a few more of our fellow scalliers, checking out their cars and enjoying the scenery. We then drive up to the Magilligan ferry which we miss by 10 mins so sit and wait along with Jake and Ellwood, the Sardines, Banger me Skanger and The Stigs. The locals ask questions as to what we are doing and are quite amazed at what we are trying to do, even they haven't been to half the places we hope to go. As we come off the ferry we decide to head straight for Ballybofey as we realise it'll be dark by the time we get there and the sun is already setting on an amazing first day. Mileage total - 590.