The Giant's Causeway and Rope Bridge

  Bushmills, United Kingdom
Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The next day we headed out to the coast to one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions. Of course, we stopped on the way for some more castle ruins too.

Anyways, we ended up at the Giant's Causeway which has all types of cool rock formations. It's also quite a hike to get to them. The most famous part are the cylinder type rocks that go out into the sea. They are more impressive when the tide is out but it was still fun. Unlike the US, there's no ropes barring you from climbing on dangerous and slippery things so it's much more fun to explore.

Me on top of the Chimney Stones

As I said, there's many different rock formations all named after things like "the boot" which, well, looks like a boot. Some are kind of lame. My favorite was the organ. This and a couple other formations are kind of out of the way so it's not very crowded like the part that goes into the sea. This was probably because you have to climb a few hundred narrow steep steps to get up there.  However, on the side of the cliff is a formation that really does look like an organ.  It looks better from far away but my camera kind of sucks.

The Organ

After that, we hopped back on the bus and ended up at a rope bridge. I don't really know why it's there. Historically, it was a bridge built so that fisherman had access to the water. Today, they charge you money to walk over it and everyone tells you it's really scary and rickety. It's not rickety. It's also not original. I'm afraid of heights and it wasn't all that terrifying.  It's just not that high up and it feels really secure. Otherwise, you are crossing between steep jagged rocks with crashing water below so that puts some people on edge.

The Rope Bridge 2

The rope Bridge 4

There's some great scenery around the rope bridge. Also, if it's a clear day you can see Scotland!