We awoke to great weather again. During breakfast we made a reservation at a nearby British National Trust site. We finished eating and then drove east along the beautiful Antrim coast. We only make one stop to photograph Dunseverick Castle. Like Dunluce, it sits on a shoreline crag, but very little remains. We park at Carrick-a-Rede and make the long hike to this island. The name is Gaelic for Rock in the Road. Fishermen used to net spawning salmon returning through the narrow passage between the shore and the island. They would erect a rope bridge each year to reach the island. The fishermen are long gone, but the swinging bridge is now a tourist attraction.
Aimee crosses the bridge first. She doesn’t want me anywhere close, thinking I will jiggle the swaying span. We walked around the little island enjoying the coastline view. We are early and the crowd is thin.
Back at the parking lot we hike in the opposite direction to visit Larrybane Quarry. It was a limestone mine. Now it is on the tourist map because a scene from Game of Thrones was filmed here.
Keeping with that theme, we next stop at the Fullerton Arms Hotel in nearby Ballintoy. The pub has a dragon door from the Game of Thrones.
We then drive the winding road down to Ballintoy Harbor. There are no empty spots in the tiny parking lot. Instead I double parked and quickly explored leaving Aimee to mind the car for a minute. Too bad. It is a stunning harbor of mangled rocks. I would love to hike around. I have to laugh though as I see dozens of people filing out all dressed in medieval outfits. They are on a Game of Thrones tour.
Giant's Causeway is mobbed with tour buses. We bypass it and instead visit Old Bushmills Distillery. We check out the gift shop but forgo the factory tour. We have done that too many times. Besides Aimee’s mom used to buy me Jamesons, the other famous Irish Whiskey from County Cork. Bushmills may be the oldest licensed distillery, but Whiskey production in Ireland is far far older. The word Whiskey comes from the Gaelic for water.
We also spend some time walking around the little village of Bushmills. The town is decorated with British and Northern Ireland flags. It also has lots of banners about English history. This is clearly a Unionist Protestant town. The owner of one of the shops we visited had a huge Bordeaux Mastiff. We had to take a photo.
We spent the afternoon back at our guesthouse. There are just too many tour buses during the middle of the day to venture out. While Aimee slept, I caught up and drank whiskey. Not Irish whiskey but the Kentucky version I brought from home.
In the evening we drove over to the Causeway Hotel for dinner again in the bar. Afterwards we hiked the Giants Causeway. This time we walked along the clifftop. This beautiful view reinforces that the actual causeway is a very small part of this park; just a tongue of rock sticking out into the sea. Somehow I had the idea that the hexagonal columns stretched over a larger part of the coastline.
After a mile this trail then zigzags down to the shore. We stop and photograph a boot-shaped rock.
We then spend an hour at the Causeway hoping for the tourists to leave. The crowd dwindles but there are too many die-hards waiting for sunset and enjoying the great ambiance. I cannot blame them for spoiling my photography. It is a beautiful and very unique spot.
The local economy lives off Causeway tourism. On the way back to our B&B, I noticed the paving tiles were all hexagons. Aimee then pointed out our toilet paper was even hexagonal.
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