2/17/08

Giant's Causeway Day! 

The plan was to get a train to Coleraine and call Andy Brown taxi to take us to my favorite place in the world, but when we got back to the hostel to pick up my coat, we noticed a big bus outside that said something about Causeway Tours. Randy looked into it and we decided that for ₤20, it really couldn't be beat. We hopped on the "mini-coach" (in the tour insdustry in the USA, 56-pax = full-sized, but I guess you have to be a double-decker in the UK to get that status?) and off we went.

THE TRIP THERE

BUSHMILLS

Mini-Coach Tours takes the scenic route with commentary and photo stops along the Antrim Coast and Causeway roads, and since we have never done this drive/ride, it was a nice thing to see new scenery. The whole coast is beautiful. 

We stopped in the village of Bushmills for the optional tour of the whiskey distillery and after years of visiting this place for a shot of whiskey and some Bushmills cheesecake, Randy and I finally gave in and took the tour. I'm glad we did because the grounds are vast, and unlike the Jameson or Guinness tours, you really get to see (and smell) a more alive and working distillery on the tour. Bushmills has been distilling and bottling in this location since 1608--Happy 400th!

GIANT'S CAUSEWAY

We could not have asked for better weather at the Causeway. It was so sunny and beautiful I even had to lose the sweater and scarf some of the time. 

Of course, I had to check in on my retirement home fixer-upper, and I was a little perturbed to find that some hooligans had left some souvenirs:

We climbed on the rocks, hiked around the cliffs, went up the steep shepherd's walk staircase, and generally had a great time taking in the scenery which the photos will never do justice. (I even ma

de it all the way out to the water Melanie!)

On the way home, we took naps and after returning to Belfast, we hit the nearest Tesco, opting to cook our own stuff in the hostel's kitchen--a night of dinner in complete with ginger snaps and tea and reading and talking and a little tv completed day 4 of our vacation.

PS

I forgot to mention that our Belfast friend Pete Wilson aka Duke Special (who is in LA to play an Irish Oscars party while we're here) picked up the Best Irish Male award at the Meteor Awards (like our Grammys?) on the 15th! Congratulations Peter. He was on the cover of this copy of the Belfast Telegraph we bought to read on the way up to the Causeway: