Day 23 – August 9 – Northern Ireland

by The Travel Guy

With the Squash tournament concluded it’s time for H & D Tours to get underway. We weren’t sure how many days the tournament would run, so we saw as much of Belfast as possible knowing that once Ron had his Gold Medal that we’d start the rest of our tour.  Normally Jeff does all the tour planning but now he’s collaborating with Marsha, as they have done before on a couple of trips to Hawaii and a few to Vegas.  We’ve listed off some of the places we’d really like to see and now we’ve built a rough itinerary around the list.  We know that we won’t be able to see all of Northern Ireland and Ireland, so we’ll pick out a few places and leave the rest for our next trip.

We had our last breakfast at the Stormont Hotel and once again resisted the temptation to have Bushmills Whiskey on our porridge.  We’ve gotten to know the breakfast staff, which are primarily college students, a little better than when you’re only staying a couple nights and it makes it fun learn a little bit more about their lives and plans for the future.

We head north from Belfast towards the Antrim Coast.  The major motorway begins to narrow as we get into more rural areas.  Our TomTom GPS with John Cleese’s voice continues to entertain us as we drive.  One example is when we are approaching a significant turn on our route.  John will instruct us “Prepare to turn Left in 800 metres … or as we used to say – half a mile … if it wasn’t for that little bastard Napoleon!”.

The roads narrow as we get further away from the urban centre and shoulders are unheard of

 

Along a narrow 2 lane road the traffic comes to an abrupt stop without any clear indication of what has caused it.  Suddenly, a farmer comes running out of his yard in his gum boots and we discover that one of his calves as gotten loose and is curious to see what’s on the other side of the road. After about 5 minutes he manages to corner it long enough to get a hold of it and lead it back into his yard.

Farmer tracks down one of his rogue calfs

One of the other drivers gets out to lend a hand

 

Soon we’re back on our way to the Giant’s Causeway.  Paul had suggested that we have lunch at the Causeway Hotel and order the “Causeway Steak”.  However, Ron and Jeff discovered that not only had the hotel changed hands since Paul had been here but the chef had also moved on so the steak was no longer on the menu.  It appeared that a tour group had booked the entire restaurant for lunch, so it looked like we might have to wait for some sort of ‘barley lunch’ later in the afternoon.

The Giant’s Causeway just appears out of the side of the hill

The Giant’s Causeway is one of those miracles of nature that is just as well explained by local folklore as it is by a geologist.

Legend has it that the causeway was built by the giant Ulster warrior, Finn MacCool.  He knew there was a rival giant, Benandonner living off the coast of Scotland on the island of Staffa.  Finn accepts a challenge from Benandonner and built the stone bridge to Staffa so he could spy on him.  When he sees how much bigger Benandonner is he retreats back to Ireland.  Benandonner sees the causeway but no sign of Finn, so he walks across the North Channel to Ireland.  Finn has had a chance to come up with a plan.and upon hearing Benandonner approach he quickly dresses in baby clothes and crawls into a very large cradle.  When the Scottish giant enters the house he finds Finn’s wife and demands to know where Finn is.  Hi wife tells him that Finn’s not home but if he isn’t quiet then he’ll wake her baby and then his father will be very angry.  Benandonner, having never actually seen Finn MacCool, sees the size of the baby and realizes that he doesn’t want to tangle with the father of a such a large baby.  So he makes a haste retreat back to Staffa, destroying the causeway behind him.  To this day you can still see remnants of this geologic formation under the sea, all the way to Staffa.

From this height it looks like small blocks a child might play with

 

There are a number of very interesting formations, the Pipe Organ,

The “Pipe Organ” at the Giant’s Causeway

 

Ron standing in the Giant’s boot

the Giant’s Boot

Jeff relaxing in the Giant’s boot

and of course a virtually endless supply of hexagonal basaltic columns of varying heights.

The blocks come in all shapes and sizes and of varying length

 

For your entrance fee they give you an audio guide to allow you to hear about the different features as you walk around the site.

Jeff relaxing on a column

 

They also spin some yarn about this area being created 50 Million years ago as the result of volcanic activity creating a large basaltic lava plateau.  Just like we see cracks in mud as it dries the cooling basalt created these columns.  It’s also interesting to note that in many cases the bottom of the column is convex and the resulting top of the column below is concave, resulting in a form of “ball ‘n socket” connection between the columns.  It also makes it perfect for holding water on the top of the columns.

The top of some are concave and hold the rain water while others are convex

 

Although this natural wonder is crawling with tourists, it is certainly well worth the trip.

Our next stop is the Bushmills distillery in Bushmills, Northern Ireland, just a short drive from the Giant’s Causeway.  Little did we realize at the time but once Deana had experienced Irish Malt Whiskey, the economy of Scotland was going to take a significant hit from the resulting drop in sales of Scotch Malt Whisky.  A young fellow gave us an excellent tour which included a wonderful sense of humour.  Before taking us into the area where the “Spirit Safe” monitors the quality of the spirit coming from the stills after it is distilled, he tells us that this is the only part of the process that has to be “manned” all the time, by the Spirit Safe.  We then enter the room only to discover that there is no one there.  Not missing a beat he simply starts into the narrative that is normally given by the Spirit Safe and he has likely heard hundreds of times. Next we entered the warehouse, where the casks are stored, he begins by apologizing for having to subject us to a commercial message about the distillery and offering inducements for us to make a purchase at the end of the tour in the store.   They also had a very interesting display showing the effects on the colour of the whiskey based on the amount of time and the type of cask the whiskey is aged in.

…. after the tour we are treated to a taste of their finished product.

We learned that there are 3 things that distinguish Irish Malt Whiskey from Scottish Malt Whisky:

1. In Scotland peat is used to dry the malt, which is simply the sprouted or germinated barley.  At Bushmills they used closed kilns and therefore you don’t get the smoky peaty flavour you often find in Scottish Whisky.
2. The Irish Whiskey is triple distilled instead of the two distillations for Scotch Whisky.
3. Last but not least, the third difference is that Irish Whiskey is spelt with an “e” whereas Scotch Whisky is not.

The girls look pretty pleased with our stop at the Bushmills Distillery

 

With all the distilleries in Scotland, some small islands have as many as 8 different distilleries, there are only 4 distillers in Ireland (Northern Ireland and Ireland together).  Bushmills even has a separate line in the bottling plant that is strictly for handling spirits for other labels.

In this same area, the Antrim Coast, is a narrow foot bridge suspended almost 100 feet above the ocean called Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.

Approaching the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland

 

After a 1 mile walk along the coast, with some spectacular views of the cliffs and ocean you come to the crossing. The bridge spans the 65 foot wide chasm to connect a small island to the mainland.  For 200 years the fishermen have been making this crossing to get access to the island.  They had learned that at this point on the coast the fish would turn the corner and therefore this island was an excellent fishing site.  Today, the walk across the bridge provides you with a better vantage point for watching the seabirds that nest on the cliffs.

Marsha and Ron awaiting our turn to return back across the suspension bridge

 

Did someone say “Please bounce the bridge when I get to the middle?”

 

Looking straight down the 100+ ft to the water below

 

Marsha and Jeff had looked at our remaining time and determined that we would need to make tomorrow a long day of driving in order to get to southern Ireland.  This would mean missing many sights along the Donegal Coast and in western Ireland, but we wanted to avoid driving through places just to say we’d been there but not having time to stop.  So skirted around the heart of Derry (or Londonderry for the Unionists) and headed for a small B&B just southeast of Donegal.

Jeff tried to locate a place to stay that would be close to the Belleek Pottery factory.  Marsha had put this as a “must see” early on in our planning and we found a place that was so off the beaten path that it was used by equestrians travelling through the countryside.  We were a little dubious as we finally drove up the driveway, but the German owners of the property were so nice that they even opened up the kitchen to serve us a fine dinner, long after they normally closed.

The other interesting part of the day was the travelling from place to place on the often narrow roads.  In many places there is no shoulder and in fact the edge of the road is a hedge that has been trimmed back for the traffic and as soon as it reaches a height that won’t touch the trucks and buses it starts to grow over the road.  All this as Jeff continues to get used to shifting a manual transmission with his left hand.  He admits that on more than one occasion he reached with his right hand for the gear shift, only to find the door handle.