Follow the brown sign

You know the ones. The signposts found by the wayside of roads up and down Great Britain. The beautifully enticing, dingy looking signs making you aware of a jewel in the British tourist board that is lying to be discovered, somewhere in the vicinity. Sometimes they're more than adequately clear in signalling 'Dunluce Castle', and then leading you to exactly that castle. And you know what you're looking for in terms of a castle. However some of these signs are a little more cryptic and generally less helpful.

To give you some scene setting, I visited the magnificent Northern Ireland. I had eight days to explore as much as I could. My travelling companions on this leg of the journey were Vicky, a very dear friend of mine, and her almost-four-month old son, and my Godson, William. Vicky and I have had previous experience 'exploring' together; not so much exotic, more rural areas. Deepest, darkest Wiltshire where we were unable to find a 100 foot white horse and blindly drove across a live firing range looking for a mythical village.

William was the uninitiated. If he realised what he was letting himself in for, he may have opted to stay at home.

On a rainy August morning, we headed out on the open road. Our route was to take us up through the Sperrins, a mountain range in the West of the country. To give a little more background, Vicky had only moved to Northern Ireland less than a year before, and for most of her residence she had been incapacitated by pregnancy and the subsequent infant child. Fair enough I suppose. And so sightseeing had not been top of the priority list. Once I had arrived to visit, maps and leaflets in hand, the tourist in her began to stir.

Negotiating the winding, country roads, we didn't particularly know where we were headed. But that's the nature of the adventures we were used to embarking on. We would drive until we found an interesting sign to guide us. This is where the brown signs are so valuable. This is where the magic happens.

I must add another character to the tale at this point. Vicky's husband, George, had also been dragged along for the ride. But I feel this is where we lost him. He didn't seem to share our enthusiasm for entrusting our route to waiting for a brown sign to appear. I hasten to add that George is a born and bred Northern Irish gent, yet when we asked him for worthwhile tourist trails, he had few gems to offer. With no greater alternatives, he dutifully fell into line to join us to put our fate into the hands of those wonderful brown signs.

Our track record on home turf had been quite positive. We had found many interesting ruins, castles and tea rooms. But now we were in strange, foreign lands.

As we drove the 'scenic mountain route', (labelled by the very same breed of signage) we passed our first board that directed us to an undiscovered treasure. I would recount the wording on the sign now, but I can't remember it at all. To be fair, two seconds after passing the sign I couldn't remember what it said. At a push I could say there were possibly three words, with a few 'c's and 'r's in there. It was just a bit too Irish for my English brain to comprehend.

Despite not knowing exactly what we were headed towards, Vicky was insistent. We found a turning point and set off in the direction pointed to by the sign. Passing another brown sign, we were heartened to be informed that this treasure was only a mere three miles away. Admittedly, I still couldn't understand the sign, and to be honest I'm sure they changed some of the letters around from the previous sign.

We drove on. And on. Pretty soon I was getting the feeling that our trusted brown signs were leading us a merry dance. We had definitely driven for more than three miles, but we hadn't found our destination. Not that we knew what we were looking for. None of us had been able to read the sign.

In time honoured British tradition we carried on. No, we certainly weren't lost. In fact we passed a stunningly beautiful lake that we weren't expecting and then continued on to a nature / craft centre that offered us weary travellers a hot drink and some sweet treats.

It was in this coffee shop oasis in the middle of the mountains that we discovered the truth about our magical signpost. Apparently the sign we were following was for an ancient Celtic burial site. And yes, we were on the right trail. But alas, the farmer who owned the land had got increasingly exasperated by tourists stopping by (clearly this is high excitement in these parts) that he removed the final brown sign to direct travellers to the exact site!

Gah! It seems some people don't have the same respect for those hallowed, brown signs as we have. Never fear. You can never stop the signage. We will continue to follow the brown signs. You never know where they might lead.