bikepacking

Over to Belfast

Andrew Ross

21 Feb 2026 — 4 min read

I’ve been lucky enough to visit my brother in Belfast over the last couple of days. It’s the first time that I’ve been across on my bike and thought I’d share a few of the highlights.

The Ferry

I travelled over on the Stenna Line Birkenhead (Liverpool) to Belfast ferry. Whilst this isn’t’ the quickest way across to Ireland it was ideal for me travelling on my bike. My mum lives in the Wirral so I dropped my car off at her house and then cycled to Birkenhead Port - approximately 6 miles.

As a cyclist you go through the ‘foot passenger’ entrance. Once through your bike is loaded onto the luggage van. I was assured the van was locked the whole route so didn’t need a lock on it. On the return journey, probably due to it being busier, my bike was loaded (and locked) onto a towable bike rack.

My bike loaded onto the van for travel across to Belfast.

The Birkenhead to Belfast route is approximately 8 hours. On advice from my brother I paid an extra £30 for the Stenna Plus. This provides you with extra comfortable seats and free ‘nibbles’ and drinks for the whole route. Whilst you have to pay for meals these are delivered directly to you.

Considering the long journey time I feel this is good value for money. I drank plenty and ate plenty! Drink includes house wine and 0% Heineken.

Stenna Plus - well worth every penny on a long crossing.

The Comber Greenway

I arrived at approximately 6:45 on Thursday evening in the pouring rain and dark. Luckily I had my lights and waterproofs with me. The journey to my brother’s house was about 8 miles. From the port to Belfast city centre was hard going - the roads were rough and the traffic busy. After a little struggle to find the right way onto NCN 99 - The Comber Greenway the going became easier. My brother lives approximately half-way along the Greenway.

Route 99 leads from the city centre towards Comber. There are a few sections at the start that I felt uneasy passing through in the dark - there was a large gang with two or three motorbikes on the route - but they kindly stood to the side and let me pass without any concerns. Talk about me pre-judging a group of teenagers!

The route is bizarrely lit by red lights - giving it a slightly bizarre ‘red-light’ district vibe but it was busy with runners and dog-walkers and I felt safe on the majority of it. It’s a laid path the whole route and is a joy to cycle on - so smooth.

I used the Greenway for my return journey back into Belfast and to the port. This time however I followed the advice of my brother and, after coming off the Comber Greenway, virtually completed the entire journey to the port on cycle-paths. Significantly better than my first journey which consisted of busy main roads up to the Greenway.

Exploring by bike

I also got out on the bike with my brother. This was a relaxed and enjoyable ride round the area. We started by joining the Greenway again and heading into Comber.

Here we visited a lovely little cafe and had a coffee and pastry. We then continued to Island Hill and, luckily, as the tide was out, and I was able to ride across the slippy causeway to the Island. Be careful if you do cycle over - the causeway is very slippy!

From there we rode up and around Scrabo Hill, causing me to puff a bit, before heading down the otherside. Here we followed main roads (mostly on the bus lanes) back through Dundonald, past the hospital and Stormont (also worth a visit), before coming into Ballyhackamore. We stopped for lunch at an Ice-Cream Parlour here called Maude’s - highly recommended!