Courtown Day

TLDR – Road trip to Courtown for Beach, Kites, Arcade, food, and a Carnival

Road Trip

Chatting with a co-worker the week before, he mentioned his wife used to love summers in Courtown. Not knowing where it was, I looked it up on the maps. From Aerial views, it looks like a massive trailer park on the coast with a marina, beach, mini golf, and a small carnival. Perfect for a day trip. Mila was super excited about the carnival. Leaving on a Friday, I wanted to get there early and woke the kids up around 0700, which is the regular school wake-up time. Summer wake-up time has moved closer to 0900 or 1000 for Maddex.

Bribed the kids with, wake up early and we’ll get Mcdonalds for breakfast. Ten hash browns, a few egg muffins, an iced latte, and a smoothie. Oh ya, before McDonald’s, we stopped to take a seven-year anniversary picture of the kids on some mushrooms that make them nearly the same height; great picture. Drive is 86km about an hour south on the M1. Michelle was telling stories to the girls about her childhood – Maddex was in the back listening to Iron Druid book 2 – and I drove. Destination Courtown.

Halfway there, we heard a loud flap flap flap sound and had to pull off the motorway to work out the source of the sound. It turns out the E electric car sticker on the windshield partially came off and was flapping in the wind. Michelle took it off, and the sound was gone. Apple Maps took us closer to Ballymoney than Courtown. We had to put in a new destination and drive on extra-narrow Irish country roads before we found our desired destination, a beach peer in Courtown.

Made it to Courtown

The weather is shite – we’re thinking about turning around and heading home. Cloudy, windy, and rainy. The car had enough electrons to make it home with about 10km to spare. In the center of town is a charger we hooked up to for a bigger power budget on the return trip. I figured we’d walk about a bit and try to explore in the rain. Nothing opens this early. The carnival the kids are excited about does not open until 1400, its not even 0900 yet. Hiding from the rain, we walked across the street to a shop and bought some sweets. Outside with sweets still rain – ugg

Oh, look back next to the car. Flannigans Warf Arcade is open – lets check it out. Drop 30 euros on tokens for the kids to split up and use to play games and earn tickets. Maddex and I play Air hockey, and then he hit the jackpot twice on a ball game, earning about 600 tickets. The girls managed about 300 tickets playing their games. The owner was working the prize counter and gave us about 2000 tickets worth of stuff. Extra class of him. Dead pool mug for Maddex and Stitch rubbers for the girls plus some lollies.

By now the rain has finally let up – Mila is begging to wait until 1400 for the carnival; it’s sure day so sure we can work out something. Walk along the beach, parkour on some rocks, fly the kites, wade in the ocean, Shop for random stuff, have lunch of kababs and chips, and a French hot dog, public toilets, walk around the town, check out another arcade (pirates cove) mini golf for mom and Maddex and finally we made it 1400 for the carnival.

Carnival Time

We were starting a tiny queue at the gate for the carnival at the 1400 open time, watching them slowly turn everything on not opening the gate. Fifty tickets for 40 euro split four wants meant everyone was able to ride 3-4 rides at 3-4 tickets per ride. The first ride was the small roller coaster for Mila and Roxi – they were so excited. Ran three times. They went on it again with their last tickets and it ran four times around. Next is a fun house where Mila managed to win the prize of finding shit on a slide. Poor girl had poo on her leg and shorts. Michelle took her to the toilets and cleaned up as best as possible.

Mila, Roxi, and Maddex took the spinner next. Round and Round they went. After the spinner, Khaleesi had a bit of an anxiety attack and did not want to go on any more rides. She could not work out how the spinner worked and thought everyone was going to fly out of the machine. Instead, she went duck fishing while the other kids smashed into each other in the bumper cars. Maddex had the biggest grin we’ve seen on his face in a while. He loved driving and smashing.

A fun day was had – everyone but Mila had a nap on the drive home. Mila was knitting with some new thick yarn. Thanks, Paul, for the suggestion to check out Courtown.