Ireland - Ballycastle / Donegloe

Today was a very touristy day. We started out with a traditional Irish breakfast. I've noticed over the years that a "traditional" breakfast is ususally an excuse to feed you something unpleasant and they feed you way too much. In this case, only the latter applied. No black and white pudding for us.

Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede Rope bridge, which didn't open until ten, so we continued on to the Giant's causeway.

The causeway was built by Irish giant Finn McCool (best name ever) so he could go across to Scotland to beat up a Scottish giant. There is also a legend about ancient volcanic activity and the properties of lava cooling to produce hexagonal stone columns, but how can you not believe anything that involves Finn McCool. The causeway really does look like somebody paved a path into the sea using hexagonal paving stones.

The rope bridge spans a short gap to a rock that is now an island, but I'm sure used to be part of the mainland. It is a long drop to the sea below. The bridge is fairly sturdy and is only scary if the wind is blowing, which it constantly is in Ireland as I'm learning. There may be some great historical relevance of the bridge, but from my observations most people do it for the adrenaline rush. And does it ever deliver.

Our final scheduled stop was Dunluce Castle. The ruins of the castle are perched on a cliff over looking the sea. The castle's history is full of storiea about how the current ruler hired mercenaries to help with such and such battle, but then the mercenaries took over the castle and became the local rulers. Then they had to hire mercenaries, who in turn, took over from them. This happened a few times, so they are not big on learning from another's mistakes. The moral seems to be fight your own battles. Or never trust Irish mercenaries. Now the battlements looking over the sea provide wonderful views up and down the coastline.

For the rest of the day we decided to annoy Morag. We programmed in out destination and then took the most back-roads, winding, coastal, scenic route we could find. The scenery was beautiful, but at every possible turn Morag implored us to get on the highway. By the end of the day you could almost hear the anguish in her voice when she asked us to turn and when she repeated "recalculating" for the 40th time she sounded pissed.

After the full Irish breakfast and a decent lunch, neither of us were up for much dinner. Three full meals a day while sitting in the car is not a good combination. We hit up a grocery store and had a quiet snack in our room at the B&B. We'll see what breakfast is like tomorrow.