Causeway Coast

We visited an old cemetery today, really old, as in 3-4000BC, Carrrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery. It was quite enthralling, an area of 5 acres or so with about 10 different stone circles, a large cairn (which was actually a reconstruction), and about 20 dolmen. Dolmens are little piles of rocks that they believe were used as tombs. Every one of them faced the setting sun at the winter solstice. In one of these small dolmens they found 35kgs of burnt human remains. The bones were placed over a period of 500 years or so, so the area was obviously used over a long period, in the late Stone Age. They don’t know what religious rites people of that time may have practised of course, it’s just so long ago that it’s mind blowing to contemplate. In one of the photos you can see a large cairn right on top of the hill in the distance. This is Knocknarea, it’s made of 40,000 tonnes of stone and is believed to be the grave of the legendary (apparently, although we’ve never heard of her) Queen Maeve – it’s never been excavated.

We stayed in a camp at Benone Beach; it’s a lovely long sandy beach. Not surprisingly, since there was a cold wind and it was the first Monday that kids have gone back to school, there was almost no-one else on the beach. What was surprising was that there were two lifeguards on duty – rather optimistic we thought!

We are now on the Causeway Coast. Our first stop was Downhill House – a ruin of a house built in the 19th century – didn’t last the test of time. It was owned by Earl-Bishop Frederick Hervey who apparently had a sense of humour and used to do things like scatter flour on the floor so that he could see which guests had visited whom in the night.

He also built Mussenden Temple, upon the death of his female cousin whose beauty he admired; hmm my suspicious mind imagines they were more than cousins?

The temple was close to the house and used as a library – I think I would have found it hard to relax with a good book being this close to the cliff edge – this view is from the window.

We also stopped in at Dunluce Castle, which also hangs almost over the sea – what is it with these people and their cliff edges! It also had a cave that went right under it to the sea – there was a sign saying ‘Danger of falling rocks, do not enter’ but there was a path with a handrail leading right to it so of course we entered, like many others before us judging by the track going in...

Last but definitely not least today was the Giant’s Causeway itself. This is an amazing piece of geology. I also really enjoyed some of the legends that surround it. One story is that the local giant, Finn MacCool, challenged a Scottish giant, Benandonner, to a fight because he’d heard that he was supposed to be the strongest giant in the world. He built the causeway so that Benandonner could come over for the challenge (because everyone knows giants don’t like to get their feet wet). When Finn saw the other giant, he ran home and asked his wife to hide him because he was a lot bigger than Finn. His wife told him to jump into bed and dressed him as a baby. Benandonner came looking for Finn but when he saw the size of his ‘baby’ he lost all desire to fight the father and ran home ripping up the causeway as he went. Apparently there are similar rocks on a beach in Scotland. I liked this story, with both giants no braver than each other.

The tall columns on one side of the causeway show how high the columns are, otherwise you only see the tops and don’t get a true perspective of them. It was intriguing the way the hexagons are formed into hills, steps and valleys.

Our first stop today was Dunseverick Castle, just a couple of wall corners sticking out of the ground now. Mind you it has been around a while – it’s the remains of a 16th Century tower. Apparently Dun means a royal fort and was possibly a fort as early as 500 B.C. It was attacked by Vikings in 871 and destroyed by them in 926. St Patrick apparently visited in the 5th Century – quite a bit of history for a couple of stones sticking up!

We also walked along the coast a bit – it’s really the most beautiful place: lots of dramatic rocky beaches with waves crashing and swirling, then just around the corner a lovely sandy bay.

These sheep seemed to have no idea of the danger they were in, I was too scared to go too close in case they were frightened over the edge - how horrific that would be... Mind you if we could have scrambled down to them we could have eaten well for weeks! I'm joking

Our next visit was the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge. Of course I had no intention of crossing it – it crosses over a 24m deep and 18m wide chasm from the mainland to a little island. Just the word ‘chasm’ gives me the creeps. While I was waiting for Gus, I was talking to another woman, who was no braver than me and we agreed that they should print T-Shirts with the insignia “I was too chicken to cross the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge”. I reckon they’d make their fortune! Gus reckoned it wasn’t too bad, very steady, notice in the photo that he’s not even bothering to hold on, but agreed that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. It was originally used by salmon fisherman to cast their nets from the island.

After the horrid bridge we drove up to Glenariff Forest Park and went for a lovely walk – we saw a couple of beautiful waterfalls and even a red squirrel – one that stayed still long enough to have its photo taken, albeit on a very high branch. We also found a quiet little camp in the Forest Park – there was only one other couple there – when the warden came round to collect our fee, he refunded the parking we’d paid when we went for a walk so it worked out very cheap – good camp too.

Today we visited the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum outside Belfast. It was really two museums in one. The first was a transport museum with an exhibition on the Titanic, which was built and launched in Belfast. My favourite bit was when a young woman in period costume gave us a talk, taking the part of ‘Violet Jessop’, a woman who was a stewardess and survivor from the Titanic and later a nurse in WWI; and went on to survive a second shipwreck when she was on one of the Titanic’s sister ships ‘The Olympic’ which was hit by a mine and sunk. In the displays they also blew a few of the myths that were maintained in the movie: 1. The steerage passengers were not locked downstairs, it was harder and longer for them to find their way on deck – this was a design fault but not deliberate. 2. A second ship that was supposed to be close enough to rescue them was stuck in ice itself, so even if it had known of their plight (which it didn’t) it couldn’t have saved them. 3. It was true that the men in the crow’s nest didn’t have binoculars when they should’ve but, as the iceberg was struck at night, it’s unlikely they would have made any difference.

The Transport Museum also had a really good collection of trains, here’s Gus playing engine drivers in his favourite one. They also had everything from hot air balloons (they sent the first one up with a sheep, a rooster and a duck to check there was enough air to breathe), to early aeroplanes, horse carriages, and some cars.

The second museum was the Folk Museum, this was a whole village of houses, shops etc from around 100 years ago – their theme being that this is how people would have lived when the Titanic was built. Some people were demonstrating crafts from the era, including a basket weaver and this lady working on the loom – the perfect job Karen?

Gus wanted me to show this real Steam Roller, people often call modern diesel rollers ‘steam rollers’ and it’s just not right, so to correct this anomaly... note the difference!

We were intrigued by these hot water jars you could hire to take into the picture theatre with you. The picture theatre showed moving pictures with someone playing the piano in the corner, cute!

And finally they had different houses open and furnished; from simple labourer’s cottages with tiny backyards, just big enough to contain a long drop toilet and a pile of coal, to quite comfortable looking bank managers residences attached to the bank. Guess what I’m in, I guess the bank manager’s residence just isn’t for the likes of me!