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The North #2
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Ballycastle would probably be a pretty quite seaside town for much of the year, but being mid-summer it was very busy when we arrived. After checking our bags into our hostel, which was right on the town's popular main beach, we walked along the water for an hour or two, then decided to drive up the Giant's Causeway coast.
There's a well known rope bridge that links the coast and one of the islands which we'd hoped to walk on, but it was closed by the time we reached it about 7pm. So we drove on an thought we'd go to the Causeway then, instead of waiting until the next day as we'd planned. We were really grateful we did, because getting there late gave us beautiful evening sun which set off the causeway beautifully and it also meant there were almost no other tourists there. We spent about an hour scrambling over the utterly incredible rock pillars. As you'll see by the amount of photos we've posted, we were pretty struck by it. To have it all almost to ourselves made it a really special experience. We also thought it pretty cool that we could see Scotland in the distance.
The next day we took at leisure driving around the north-east coast. The first hour or two was great fun driving on windy country roads where we had to toot our car horn as we approached blind corners and stop to give way to other cars. We had a good laugh when we encountered an Antrim-style traffic snarl... the result of the district's farmers cramming the only road of a tiny little village for Sunday mass. The scenery was stunning, with the ocean just to the left of us and steep mountainside to our right.
In time we came upon a larger road that winds around the coast all the way to Belfast. It took us a couple of hours to get down there - including a stop at the medieval castle at Carrickfergus where J-P taught Shaz a few lessons on the huge snakes and ladders board. Then we decided to follow the advice of one of the guys who Shaz has been working with and take the scenic route through the mountains of Mourne (thanks to J-P's Dad we now know the lyrics to the song!). Again the scenery was beautiful. It was just a shame that there were few obvious places where you could stop and enjoy the view, or directions for scenic diversions off the main road. By late afternoon we were hungry and stopped for a pub meal in Warrenpoint, a town deep in the Carlingford Lough. We both had enormous and delicious serves of Sunday roast which was more than enough fuel to get us home to Dublin.
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