{"id":333,"date":"2013-05-28T17:19:41","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T22:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/?p=333"},"modified":"2016-05-04T11:48:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T16:48:38","slug":"causeway-in-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/?p=333","title":{"rendered":"Causeway in the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>
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Last tie I was in Belfast, I took a tour up around the Antrim coast<\/a> to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, the Giant’s Causeway, and Dunluce Castle. It rained pretty hard the entire time, and I got drenched. More to the point, I didn’t really get any good pictures.<\/p>\n

This time around, the sun was shining pretty much the whole time. There were some threatening clouds in the afternoon, and I felt a few tiny drops when I got back to Belfast, but really, the weather was pretty much perfect.<\/p>\n

So, yeah. You may have seen some of these pictures from last trip, but I think these turned out nicer.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
We started from the Europa Hotel. Until recently it held the record for the most bombed hotel in the world. Now the honour is held by the Hilton in Bagdad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Our<\/a>
Our first stop was Carrickfergus Castle. We only had a short stop here, so we had a look at the outside, but couldn’t go in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"My<\/a>
My seatmate on the tour was Anya, from Denmark. She agreed to take a picture of me here at Carrickfergus in return for me taking a picture of her here, as well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Carrickfergus<\/a>
Carrickfergus Harbour is very pretty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We stopped for lunch at Bushmill’s Distillery. Not enough time for a tour, and a long line at the cafeteria, so I grabbed a sandwich from Spar and walked down into the town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The centre of Bushmill Village is very nice. I still can’t get over the narrow, narrow streets and narrow, narrow sidewalks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We stopped at a view of Dunluce Castle, which was very pretty, but we didn’t go in. A little disappointed, but at least I went in last year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I didn’t get the name of the young lady who took my picture here. But thank you!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Last<\/a>
Last time I was at the Giant’s Causeway, tide was high, and I was a little disappointed with the size of it. Today, the tide was much lower, and a whole lot more of it was exposed. All the darker portion was new to me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"It's<\/a>
It’s really much more extensive than it seemed last visit. Also, less likely to kill you if you get close to the waves. And easier to climb on the drier stones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"So,<\/a>
So, yeah. Much cooler this time around. And not drenched in rain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"And<\/a>
And lots of tiny wildflowers sprouting in amongst the stones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Thanks<\/a>
Thanks to Anya for once again doing photographer duty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another shot of the Giant’s Boot. Drier this time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Here<\/a>
Here are some kids up at the Organ. They give some perspective as to the size of the formation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Looking<\/a>
Looking up at the Organ. This time, without a big drop of water on the lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Waves<\/a>
Waves crashing on the Giant’s Causeway. Big, but not terrifyingly big.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is the headland on the beach just past the Giant’s Causeway. I’m not sure if the little pillars you can see on it are natural or man-made.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The island in the foreground is Rathlin Island<\/a>. Interesting place. Behind it, the shadowy outline is the Mull of Kintyre – it’s actually part of shoreline of Scotland, about twelve miles away.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I had forgotten how much walking was involved in visiting Carrick-a-Rede. And how steep most of it is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"So,<\/a>
So, this is the Carrick-a-Rede bridge from above. With the bright sunlight, you can see exactly how far down things are.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Here<\/a>
Here I am, halfway across the bridge. Maria and David, who are from Mexico and are here on their honeymoon, helped out with this picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is the view down from the bridge at about the half-way point. It’s around a hundred feet down to the water and rocks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"They<\/a>
They have put up new fences to keep visitors from trampling over the fields where wildflowers will be sprouting soon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After this, it was back to the bus, and back to Belfast. My legs are worn out, and I’m going to bed soon.<\/p>\n

Those of you who have been looking at my itinerary have probably noticed that I didn’t go to the Ghost Walk last night. That’s because the schedule has changed, and they only run on Wednesdays and weekends. I’m going to try and make that tomorrow night.<\/p>\n

I’m reserving judgement on what I’m going to do tomorrow until I see how well I recover from the exertions of today. I had planned to make it out to the Giant’s Ring, and maybe to Downpatrick, but I may try for Marble Arch Caves tomorrow if I’m still tired. Or I may just decide to try and see some of the places in Belfast I haven’t made it to, yet. I haven’t got anything definitively booked, so I can be flexible tomorrow.<\/p>\n

In other words, stay tuned. Not even I<\/em> know what I’m going to do!<\/p>\n

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Last tie I was in Belfast, I took a tour up around the Antrim coast to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, the Giant’s Causeway, and Dunluce Castle. It rained pretty hard the entire time, and I got drenched. More to the point, I didn’t really get any good pictures. This time around, the sun was shining … Continue reading “Causeway in the Sun”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104,102],"tags":[262,120,94,95,121],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belfast-ireland-2013","category-ireland-2013","tag-belfast","tag-bushmill","tag-carrick-a-rede","tag-dunluce-castle","tag-giants-causeway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8tF5A-5n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickneal.ca\/travelblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}