The Antrim Coast

This weekend I learned that Northern Ireland is ridiculously beautiful! I made it over to the Antrim coast with my friends Lacey, Hannah, and Mary Clare where we spent Saturday seeing some of the sights the coast has to offer.

We took a morning train to Portrush which was a beautiful ride- a mixture of pastureland and ocean. Portrush is a busy beach town in the summer but pretty dead in September on a Saturday morning. So we cut our time in Portrush short and took a taxi to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. The bridge is 80 feet high and 65 feet long and connects the mainland to a small island. Fishermen have hung bridges here for 200 years in order to catch salmon as the come round the coast. It was a 1 mile walk along the coastline to the bridge which was absolutely beautiful! And praise the Lord, Saturday was on of the few days of sun in Northern Ireland! :-)

After crossing the bridge we walked to an old limestone quarry called Larrybane. At Larrybane we found amazing coastal views and a good place to nap :-)

We found a path from Larrybane to Ballintoy, a tiny coastal town. When we got to the bus stop we met some travelers from Belfast who informed us that the next bus didn't leave Ballintoy until later that evening. So we went to the nearest pub, the Carrick-a-Rede Restaurant and Bar, to see if they could call a taxi for us. Fortunately the bartender's brother is a taxi driver so she gave him a call to come get us. While we waited for him we got to talk with some locals about the area and other places to see in Ireland. All of the locals I have encountered so far on this trip are so friendly and quick to give advice on what to do and see; but I'm still working on grasping the Northern Irish accent. I definitely didn't realize just how thick it would be!

We took the taxi down to the Old Bushmills Distillery where they have been making Irish whiskey for 400 years. We got a free drink after the tour which was pretty cool. 

After the distillery we decided to walk the 6 miles back to Portrush. We definitely looked like tourists when we paused to take pictures of the sheep :-) The walk was beautiful, especially since the road continued along the coastline! We found a trail that led through pastures so we decided it would definitely be more Northern Irish of us to walk the trail instead of alongside the road. Unfortunately, our romantic beach path led straight into a thick grouping of thistle and our only choice was to hop a barbed wire fence into a cow pasture. We kept laughing at the cows staring at us as we hopped the fence and picked our way around cow chum. But the pasture ended up being amazingly muddy and by the time we made it across our shoes were soaked in mud and reeked pretty badly as well! 

On the other side of the cow pasture we found Dun Luce castle which was built in the Middle Ages. But during dinner one night in 1639 half of the kitchen fell  into the sea! After that night the Countess of Antrim decided to move elsewhere- I don't blame her! People are working to keep the castle maintained, especially since other parts of the castle look like they might fall off the edge soon.

We met John and Anna who were from a city outside Belfast while we watched the sun set from the castle. They told us a bit about the history of the castle and also about its ongoing restoration. We talked a bit about the US too since their son had studied in Iowa a few years back. They were so sweet and we were so grateful when they offered to give us a ride back to Portrush!

We finished off our Saturday with a night walk on the beach and train ride back to Derry. I am so glad we got to spend our weekend seeing more of Northern Ireland and got to meet such wonderful people along the way :-) This trip was definitely a gift!