Belfast - The Giant's Causeway

Today we are out fairly early for our trip to the Giant’s Causeway. it is a lovely drive but takes 1 3/4 hours so we arrive around 10.15am. By the looks of the car park we have done well to get there before a lot of the crowds. We start by having a cup of coffee and then join a guided tour that takes us down the road leading to the causeway. It is great to hear the geological and mythical history of this site. He is very informative and amusing as well.

Coastline on the way down to the Causeway.

Views on the walk down

The causeway is on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland and is a World Heritage Site. It is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns which were the result of a volcanic eruption and the columns are mostly hexagonal but there some with four, five, seven or eight sides but good luck finding them in amongst all the others and the hordes of people. They form a path to the seas from the foot of the cliff and disappear into the sea.

The legend of the Causeway says that the columns are the remains of a causeway built by the giant Finn MacCool or Fionn mac Cumhaill in Irish and is steeped in Gaelic mythology. It si said that Finn was challenged to a fight by the Scottish Giant Benandonner. He accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two giants could meet. There are two versions of the story but the one our guide tells us is that Finn hides from Benandonner when realises that he is much bigger then himself. Finn’s wife disguises him as a baby and puts him into a cradle. when Benandonner comes looking for him Finn’s wife says she doesn’t know where Finn. But Benandonner sees the size of the baby and reckons that the baby’s father must a giant among giants. So he flees back to Scotland destroying the causeway as he goes so that Finn can’t follow him. As it is there are identical basalt columns off the coast of the Sottish isle of Staffa. I liked this story and our guide tells it in an entertaining way.

Giant's dog.

Camel's hump

The Causeway was announced to the world in 1693 and then received international attention when Dublin artist Susanna Drury did watercolours of them in 1739. It became popular as a tourist site in the 19th century when a tramway brought visitors to visit and along with that came a lot of commercial ventures such as ice cream and souvenir shops. It wasn’t until 1960 when the National Trust took over management of the site did a lot of these shops disappear.

Some photos of the columns. There are so many views that you just can't capture them all and also you can't capture them without people in them most of the time. 

By the end of the tour you are at the columns themselves and we are free to roam about as much as we want to. There are hundreds of people walking over the various formations. Peter decided to walk up to the Organ Pipes for a better view but I wasn’t very keen on that idea as it was along a bit of a cliff face, so I stayed at the bottom and did my own thing. It is amazing to see the way it is structured. There are so many different ways to go and the weathering on some has created different features such as the Giant’s boot and the chimney stacks.

Giant's Boot

Organ Pipes

Overall we spend over 3 hours there. It is a beautiful day and the area has so many photo opportunities. we have some lunch back at the visitors centre and then make our way back via the Bushmill’s Whiskey Distillery.

We go a guided tour of the distillery which is very interesting. I am not going to go through all the processes needless to say it is in some ways similar to the Guinness process. At the end of the tour we are able to try a sample of the 12 year old whiskey which you can only buy at the distillery. We did promise Ben that we would try some whiskey while we were over here so this is our chance. Neither Peter or I are whiskey drinkers so this is quite different for us. We try it straight first and it is like a burn down your throat. So we take ben’s advice and temper t with a little water and that does make it more palatable. Still not convinced though. But we did try it. 

Dinner was in the hotel again as it was easy and then bed ready for our last day in Belfast.