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Published: September 14th 2008
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Eyre Square
The main square in Galway, a sweet college town Northern Ireland has been a highlight of the trip and my trip to Portstewart on the coast to see the Giant's Causeway was spectacular. I finally met up with my friends in Galway and had a bit of craic (a good laugh) with them as the sun shined down on us. It was another lovely day and as we chatted about memories of Prague and what the future had in store for us athletes were running and biking through the streets of the nice college town. It was some sort of adventure race with what appeared to be teams of two and three people with marathon tags on and bike shorts and small packs, some with helmets strapped to the packs, running through the streets on some sort of scavenger hunt. As I ate some breakfast down by the Spanish Arch (one of the older sights in Galway) they would run past, down some steps at the end of the dock, look at a piece of paper, write something down and then sprint off again. It was a strange sight at first and there must have been twenty or thirty people that ran by me as I sat. Aine said
More Galway
The cathedral, I snapped this when I was wandering to meet Doria (from the previous post). she saw some of them later pushing bikes along covered in mud.
The next day it was up early to catch a bus north, and smooth travels and a change in Derry (where I wish I had stopped for a while, but no hostel accommodation deterred me) brought me to Portstewart, a great little town right on the coast. It was Sunday and another gorgeous sunny day and the bus slowly worked its way through massive crowds of people. At first I wondered if the crowds were due to it being a pleasant sunny Sunday, but soon learned that there was a nig air show taking place directly above my head. As I crained my neck to see skywards out of the bus window I missed Portstewart and stayed on the bus into neighboring Portrush, were the main stands for the air show were located. The bus driver was nice enough and let me stay on as he worked his way back through the crowded streets to Portstewart and the show planes for the air show zoomed literally ten feet over the bus several times, with colored streams of smoke trailing behind them, so despite being trapped in the
Adventure racers
Some of the adventure scavenger hunt people running around Galway bus I was able to get a good bit of show and I was pleased for that. Finally off in the right port town, and after asking for directions I made it to Rick's Causeway Coastal Hostel. Rick is a class guy and greeted me with a hearty handshake. He advised me on the best day walks from the area and really made me feel at home. Shortly after I checked in two German lads joined me in the room and we ended up cooking dinner together and hiking together the next day. The aforementioned next day of hiking was unreal, probably the highlight of my entire trip. We started off taking a bus up to the Carrick-areade rope bridge which was a cool sight, despite having to pay three pounds to go see it and walk across it. As I swayed on the bridge the sun peeked out from a cloud and stayed shining and beautiful the rest of the day. From the rope bridge we followed the Ulster Way (a 500 km trail loop all around northern Ireland) along the Causeway Coast stretch. The coast was rugged and magnificent, and we wound along steep cliff paths and through
The Spanish Arch
You can see two more racers running to the steps that are just to the right of the arch. They would run down, look at some piece of paper, and then dash off again. sprawling meadows and sheep, under rock formations and over sharp drops. It was like a day of walking along the cliffs of Moher I had seen days before. A few kilometers after the rope bridge the path descended down to s long stretch of nice sandy beach where as we walked we encountered some beach goers. Some cows from the pasture above had wandered down and set up shop on the beach, enjoying the sunny weather. One of the German girls who we hiked with (met on the bus to the rope bridge and found out they were at the hostel as well) joked that they were cows on holiday ha! The hike was peaceful and the scenery was utterly jaw dropping, I was like a giddy kid in a great playground, scampering up hills for better views and just standing and staring for long stretches. At the end we descended steep steps down to the Giant's Causeway, a peculiar geological anomaly of basalt columns that extend out into the ocean. Legend says that they were built by the giant Finn Macool so he could cross the sea to Scotland and fight another giant (or lava flowed into a depression
Portstewart
It was a marvelous day as the bus pulled into to the small Northern Ireland town and as the lava cooled and cracked the columns formed millions of years ago, something like that). I was amazed at the precision that nature was ale to achieve, as some of the columns were almost perfectly uniform pentagons and hexagons. After lingering and marveling (and Hennis, one of the German guys jumped into the water, which is actually strictly forbidden) we hiked up to the visitors center and caught a bus back to Portstewart.
The following day the Germans left, and I started to hike from Portstewart towards the Causeway (which still had excellent views but has a long stretch of the path along a car road, which is why Rick recommends going from the rope bridge down to the causeway, which is all nature path) in an attempt to make it to a castle and to Bushmills to see the oldest licensed whiskey distillery, but turned back after a while when the rain and wind began with force. As I sought shelter and prepared to go the library (the only place in town that had any kind of internet access) I met two girls from Baltimore and after going to use the internet at the library (where
Crowds along the road
What could all these people be gathered for? Just a sunny Sunday? I canceled a night in Belfast to stay one more at Ricks) and having a nice spaghetti lunch we got to know each other a bit. They made me show them all of my pictures (which took a long time) and after we noticed the weather had cleared up. So we struck out along the route I had started that morning and I soaked up more amazing coastline. We traversed the top of a huge sand dune that ran along white rocks and a beach, and saw kayakers catching waves in the water below (I didn't know you could use a kayak like that but they were cruising along the surf). We pushed on a bit passed daylight, and ended up walking back in the dark along the road (not too dark thanks to the street lights) and arrived back at the hostel late at night and fairly exhausted.
The dat after, I retraced our steps along the road trying to make it to Bushmills again to see the castle and distillery. I could have easily taken a bus, but stubbornly I wanted to hike it and so I pushed on through high winds and soaking rain. The castle
The reason
No! There was a great air show happening was an excellent old ruin and as I explored it I was given a break from the rain. Pushing on through the wind I approached the town of Bushmills, and picked some huge plump blackberries along the road, my were they delicious. It was cool to see the oldest licensed distillery, but I payed 5.50 pounds to take the tour, and was quite disappointed. They had a sign outside that said some of the tour was shortened because of refurbishment, but they didn't mention that it was the still room, what I really wanted to see (they are installing a tenth still in order to boost production). After that there was some sort of malfunction in the bottling room, so instead of seeing the bottling machines filling bottles and the conveyor line moving along in the real, we watched a cheesy video about it. I was pretty sour until the free tasting, and the 12 year single malt aged in sherry casks lightened my mood (probably would have payed more than 5.50 for a shot of the 12 year in a bar, so it was well worth it). As I exited the Old Busmills Distillery the rain picked up, and
Aerial Tricks
You can't quite tell but two of the jets made a heart with the red contrails. as I got to center of town, there was a bus waiting just for me and my return to Portstewart was speedy and dry. That night I met some more Germans, who we actually ran into on our first hike, and a cool guy biking through northern Ireland from Seattle. The German couple offered us some Meade (a rich honey wine, apparently their uncle who is a member of some prestigious bee keeping society in Ireland gave it to them) and the four of us enjoyed a bottle and talked into the night.
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Mom
non-member comment
Grand pictures
Hi Honey! Just love all the pictures you've posted. Ireland seems like it will be hard to leave - except for that darn wind and rain. What a fun thing to do - have a scavenger hunt across a city! We'll have to remember that on our Caribbean adventures. I always wanted to go to Londonderry just because I adore the name. Too bad there wasn't a hostel close. Have a great time with the rest of your travels!! Hugs, Mom