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Published: June 17th 2015
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Up and had yet another huge breakfast, chatting with Liam and Isabelle and little Rubin. Liam showed us a photo book of the battle in Bogside in Derry. He lived there at the time and his dad owned 2 pubs in the Bogside area. There was a photo of devastation and smoke all around and a wee lad walking and holding an ice cream cone. It was in the paper entitled “life goes on”. The wee lad was Liam. Neither of his dad’s pubs survived.
We left Dungaree B&B feeling like we were leaving friends and drove 5 min down the road to
Foyel’s Ferry . Drove the car on and 5 min later we were on the other side of Lough Foyle and on our way to the Giants Causeway. Stopped into
Mussenden Temple and the ruins there for a look then onto the causeway.
The
Giants Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Geological wonder of over 40.000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of intense geological and volcanic activity." 60 million years ago the land here was different: the climate was warmer and vegetation thrived. Tectonic plates were moving - Europe and North America were moving
apart. Magma from deep inside Earth spewed through cracks in the surface. Lava flowed. It cooled in contact with air and rock, hardening into basalt.For hundreds of thousands of years, all was relatively quiet. Then the earth cracked open again and more lava forced its way out. This time, the lava cooled slowly and evenly in a deep pool. Cracks travelled through the cooling rock, creating the columns we see stretching up and making the honeycomb pattern we can see today. There are over 40,000 columns at the Giant's Causeway, most are six-sided, but there are others with fewer or more sides. Later eruptions left these columns hidden deep underground.It took millions of years of erosion for the columns to begin to be revealed. The sea level rose and fell and rose again. It wasn’t until after the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago, that the columns were revealed at the shore as they are today."
Yet again we weren’t the only ones visiting! The walk down was wonderful and we had individual audio guides to give the background of both the legend of the giant and the geological background of each of the places. Once we got
down to the basalt columns themselves it was amazing, to think nature formed these. There were so many and you could climb and walk all over them. The photos don’t do them justice at all.
After walking back up we headed onto Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge. "
Suspended almost 100 ft (30 m) above sea level, the
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge was first erected by salmon fishermen 350 years ago. Today it is a popular tourist destination, attracting thousands of thrill-seekers (and birdwatchers!) to the North Coast every year.
If you are bold enough to cross the 65 ft (20 m) bridge, stretching from the mainland to 'Rocky Island', you will be rewarded with fantastic views of Rathlin Island, Scotland and the Causeway Coast. Get a bird's eye view of the clear, green water flowing around the ancient caves and caverns far below - if you dare to look down." I was too chicken to do this but Andrea did, so I stopped and had a break while she was brave.
From here we headed down to Ballyclare, 20 min out of Dublin, via the Antrium coast in some parts, and stayed in a great pub
for the night so we could get into the Titanic museum first thing tomorrow morning. Had the most beautiful lamb cutlets in the pub that night for dinner.
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