Our morning began with an early 8 a.m. departure from our
hostel in Belfast. It began raining on the trip to Giant’s Causeway and
continued to rain and mist throughout most of our stop there. However, most of
us didn’t let that stop us and we continued down the cliff to Giant’s Causeway.
The area that falls under that title is quite large and has tons of, well,
rocks! The constant crash of the waves against the rocks adds to the majestic
beauty held in this place.
Giant’s Causeway was created by a lava eruption thousands of
years ago. The rock columns that are found here are due to the quick cooling of
that lava, causing columns with different heights to appear. There are also
myths associated with Giant’s Causeway, most dealing with an Irish giant named
Finn McCool, who was said to have built the causeway across the sea to
challenge his Scottish giant nemesis, Bernandonner. When Bernandonner started
to cross the Causeway, Finn ran in fright of his enemies much larger size.
Ironically, he ran to his wife, who passed him off as her child, then causing
Bernandonner to run in fear of a father that would be much, much larger than
the child in Finn’s wife’s arms.
More information about Giant’s Causeway can be found here: http://www.discoverireland.net/giants-causeway.php.
We then made our way to another tourist attraction. The area
around the rope bridge to the small volcanic island named Carrik-a-Rede was
beautiful as well. I’m overusing that word—beautiful—but it’s really the only
way to describe everything I’m seeing here while in the UK and Ireland. The
bridge to Carrik-a-Rede is a reconstruction of the past. Fishers used the old
bridge to travel to the island to catch salmon. Back then, the bridge only had
one rope to hold onto, but it was said they fearlessly crossed over the bridge
day after day during the warmer months to bring in fish to feed the village as
salmon swam by while migrating. The bridge was reconstructed to be a tourist
attraction.
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| Amanda Heesch crossing the bridge |
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| This shows how high up and how narrow the bridge was |
I was quite impressed and excited that the bridge and area
around it wasn't overrun by tourist-y places where they asked for a bunch of
your money to see things that don’t supplement your experience at all. They had
a simple building with toilets and a tiny café with souvenirs to purchase and
that was all, besides a ticket booth and parking areas.
The blue-green color of the water meshed with the
moss-covered rocks and created simple, natural beauty that cannot be beat. Seagulls
nested in the pockets of the side of the island while the waves continued to
crash against the sides. It was a very peaceful place that I would love to
visit again and again.
Our guide, Darren, hurried us along on our way and took us
along the Causeway Coast Route to Larne Port, where we boarded a ferry to
Scotland. The waves of the Irish Sea broke against black and grey rocks all
along our route. I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean, and driving along it
for an hour and a half was basically heaven and I loved every minute of it. I’m
sad our trip is coming to a close, but we have experienced so much in such a
short amount of time, that processing all of these things will hold me over
until my next adventure!
Janet
