Here we are on the third day of the tour of ireland. Today we tour the antrim coast. I had a pretty good nights sleep, but was up at six, then hung around in bed awaiting the call to the throne.. Breakfast was okay, had crumpets and marmite, with bacon on top, so can’t complain. Then we were out of there.
Headed to larne to start, but took a detour of to see the glanoe water fall, which was really good, and free. On the way there i went down the most roller coaster road ever, i even let out a sad squeak of worriedness on one especially steep up and down. Then we hit the coastal road….
This was ace. Slow run, mainly because of the scenery the road was right by the sea for miles, you could see so far ahead around the bays, it was great. After a time we headed for the dark hedges, the driving to get here, which was a good ten mile out of the way, was immense. It went up and down through the Irish glens and we saw maybe ten cars in the entire trip, the road was twisty and turny and i spent most of it on the right hand side of the road… Really enjoyed throwing the five down here. Then after a slight wavier, thanks to the sat nat and postcodes we got to the trees. I loved them.
We were now way behind my schedule, but we rejoined the coast road which was no loinger on the coast, and made our way to the rope bridge. Didn’t like this. At all. Too busy, too pricy, too badly organised, no real pay off. The bridge is the one you may have seen in some photos, it’s a rope bridge across to an island, and looks amazing in the photos, is not. It’s shite. Although being a shandy i was scared crossing anyway. You queue, then you go 18 meters across the wobbly bridge, then you wait to come back – not great.
After this we went to giants causeway. I was unsure about this to start with, but only six pound for parking i heard, bargain. Not any more! They now have a ‘cool’ visitor center work needs to be paid for, so it’s now 21 quid, but to be honest it is worth it, it’s incredible. I was a little unsure to start with, but after looking at it for some time you realise that you can never see something like this for real *anywhere*. We spent some time here, and we had not even had lunch yet, and it was after three, so we headed on. Next stop was a beach side town, we decided on Portsteward rather than Portrush, luckily from one point of view, as Portrush was completely packed out for some reason, but the other was rubbish. We parked up, for free, which was good and then walked down their promanarde which was odd, people just sat in their cars looking, sleeping or eating ice cream. It troubled me more than it should. We didn’t stay long. on the drive to Derry we passed an appropriate place to retire to – Dungiven… !
Next stop was Derry, as we are so late we decided to see the town tomorrow, so we got the bar immediately and after quite a few buds i risked the chicken buffet, and the others tucked into fish and sausage and mash.
Waterfall – 7/10
Coast road (start) – 8/10
Trees – 8/10
Rope bridge – 3/10
Shower -6/10