On the morning of Day 3 (Sunday) we woke up and had a big breakfast with everyone again. This time, the boys convinced Kristine to let them make bacon and sausage along with everything we’d had from the day before. She HATES basically any meat from a pig and the smell of it, but they promised to do the cooking and air out the house. It was a delicious big breakfast! Then, Kristine dropped Alexander and I off at Enterprise so we could pick up a rental car and head on our road trip. The other two couples were going to do a little exploring of their own and had invited us along, but we really wanted to give them some alone time together because we’d already crashed their party enough. Also, they were staying in the area and we were very anxious to see Northern Ireland.
For those who don’t know, Northern Ireland and Ireland are distinct countries. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland is not. Additionally, Ireland is on Kilometers and Euros, while Northern Ireland is on Miles and Pounds. The interesting thing is that you never see a sign when crossing the border between the two countries, so you have to just guess when the speed limits change and currency changes. Luckily, I had plenty of euros and pounds so we were safe wherever we were!
It was a gorgeous day in Ireland—perfect for a Sunday drive! We took the M1 from the airport up to Belfast and then cut over to the Coastal Causeway which is a (tiny) two-lane road that runs along the coast of Northern Ireland. It was so beautiful! Alexander is not a big fan of being stuck in cars, and the poor guy had to drive the whole time since I’m still not old enough to rent a car, but the Ireland scenery was just so beautiful we both couldn’t stop saying how beautiful it was and trying to take pictures out the windows of the car as we drove along. We both agree that Ireland has been the most beautiful place we’ve seen so far in our lives, and that’s saying a lot for Alexander because he has traveled a lot more than I have! Our first real stop was at a bridge which is basically a shaking rope bridge between two cliffs 25 or 30 meters up in the air! It costs 3 or 4 pounds each to get in, and then you walk down about a mile including about 200 steep steps to get to the bridge. It got a little windy and cold while we were there, but it was so pretty. And when we crossed the bridge it was sunny and there was a rainbow out over the ocean.
Beautiful Ireland (pre-Coastal Causeway)
A Little Coastal Causeway
Me on the Rope Bridge!
I’ve already posted the link in a prior post, but for more pictures of this part of the trip, click here!
Next, we picked up a snack at the Tea Room and then headed to our next destination—the Giants Causeway which has been termed “the eight wonder of the world.” It’s apparently the result of an ancient volcanic eruption and it’s over 40,000 locking towers of stones that are mostly in a hexagonal type shape. You don’t have to pay anything to go see it, but you do have to pay 5 pounds to park. From there it was about a 15 minute walk down to the rocks, and it was a beautiful walk. We got there just before sunset. After we looked around and took some pictures, we went to get in line to catch the last shuttle back instead of walking back since it was getting so chilly.
The Walk Down to the Giants Causeway
Giants Causeway- This is what the rocks look like
The Shuttle Bus
I’ve already posted the links in a prior post, but for pictures of the Giants Causeway click here!
As we were leaving the Giants Causeway, I had seen a picture of castle ruins out on a cliff (Dunluce Castle) and I really wanted to try to see it but I thought it was the opposite direction we needed to go, and it might be closed by the time we got there. So we didn’t even try and just headed the way to get us back toward Belfast, and we came around a bend in a road… and there it was. Off over the side of the road were the ruins of Dunluce Castle out on cliff with the sun setting behind it. It’s one of those things that totally takes your breath away. Alexander pulled the car over and we got out to take pictures…. And the cold wind was something that LITERALLY takes your breath away 😉 But I’m so glad we stopped! Amazing! Apparently Adam and Krissi found some castle ruins they were able to walk through (like the Blarney Castle for example… it’s ruins that you can walk through). I’m pretty sure we could have walked through this castle too but it was way too cold and we needed to get on the road back to Malahide. Then it started getting dark pretty fast and we were very glad we took the coastal way up instead of taking the faster way up and planning to take the coast home because (1) that would have been really scary at night, and (2) we would have missed so much of the view!
Dunluce Castle
But this is the part where 2 lessons learned come into play: First, when you decide to rent a car and drive around a foreign country, it’s best to get a functional map. The only map we had was a cartoonish map of the coastal causeway to show us where the main attractions were, and didn’t help us at all when we got back to Belfast to find our way out of Northern Ireland and back to Malahide! So we got lost a couple of times on dark Irish country roads… but we managed to make it back! Also, traveling in Ireland is not like the U.S. where every so often there is an exit with food places, gas, etc. We passed up a few possible small town food options hoping to find something else, and all of sudden there was nowhere to stop! Even when we got to Belfast, we didn’t have a map so we didn’t know how to find anything or find our way back and it was dark so we just kept on going. Ultimately, dinner was Subway at a gas station, and we had to sit in our car to eat it because there weren’t any places to sit and eat inside or outside. Good times!
So basically the lessons are (1) bring a map, and (2) when you are in a desolate part of a foreign country, don’t wait for another option… eat at the first town you see with food places!
It was such a fun trip! When we finally made it back to the flat in Malahide we unloaded our stuff and then walked down the street to get some more food and then came home and went to sleep.
The next morning, it was cloudy, windy, and a bit rainy for the first time on our trip. We went to a little Café around the corner for breakfast because Kristine and Jon were at work and the other couple had flown back home to London already. Then we went around to a few of the shops to find a Thank You gift for Kristine and spent the rest of the time until we had to head to the airport relaxing at the flat (ok, I’ll admit it, watching TV… I don’t have a TV in London!). Once we made it to the airport we ran into Adam and Krissi for the first time (they’d been in Ireland the whole time too), and were very happy to learn they had an absolutely amazing time in Ireland just like we did!
When we made it back to London we all went our separate ways to drop off our luggage at our flats and then met up at our favorite local cheap dinner place and shared our pictures with each other from our trips. They basically drove around the opposite corner of the Island from us, and it was great to see another part of Ireland, and that it was equally beautiful. I can’t wait to go back!
The Daily Chelle 