End of Week #5

Hello everyone,

well the weekend is over and it’s time to write about it, if you read it or not is entirely up to you.

As I wrote in my previous entry I went on a bus tour to the Giant’s Causeway with the guys from apartment nbr. 2. We met at 8:45 outside of our apartments and headed to the office of Allen’s Tours where our bus was supposed to leave at 9:30. We where advised to arrive 20 min. prior to the time of departure and we did but as it turned out we could have easily  turned up at 9:45 as bus left at 10 because we had to wait for stragglers.
After we picked up a few other passengers at their hotels our driver introduced himself as Ian and told us he will be talking most of time while we are our way to the destination.
I was thinking „Yeah you will probably just point out points of interest along the way“ but I was wrong, he literally talked the whole time, told us about the history of the towns and places we passed and gave anecdotes to noteworthy sites, like the haunted hotel or the dead mans hole. The craziest thing was that it never got boring he did it in way that kept it interesting the whole time. I was surprised to hear how many Germans where involved in the history of Northern Ireland with building a castle here and a  village there.
Only on the way back from Giant’s Causeway Ian kept quiet because we took the motorway back to Belfast, not the coastal road we took before, and there wasn’t much to tell but still he was a great tour guide and I think everyone on the bus agreed with me.
OK enough of our bus driver and more about the tour itself!
As I already mentioned the tour took the scenic coastal road to Giant’s Causeway with a few stops in between and a visit to the Bushmills distillery on the way back.
The first stop was shortly after leaving Belfast we stopped at Carrickfergus Castle, which was build by a German-ish guy in twelfth century. After 20 minutes of looking around and taking photos we journeyed on.

Carrickfergus Castle

After an hour we stopped at Carnlough harbor for a quick breather.

you can see the rain clouds aproaching in the background :D
Carnlough harbor

Another hour later we arrived at Carrick-a-Rede and its famous rope bridge that I, obviously, crossed  but I admit was a little frightened because we had very strong wind, something around 40 miles per hour,but still it’s a beautiful area and truly worth seeing, especially with good weather.

the wind was so strong it was hard to hold the camera still >.<
a view at the coast at Carrick-a-Rede with Rathlin Island in the background
yep it's a rope bridge :D
the famous rope bridge

While we are at the topic, our weather this day was kinda mixed, on one hand we had sunshine and , kinda, blue skies on the other hand it rained alot. We were lucky in the beginning as it only started raining when we boarded the bus again but once we arrived at the Giant’s Causeway the weather took a turn for the worse and it got much better shortly after we left Bushmills for Belfast.

A mere 15 minutes after we left Carrick-a-Rede we arrived at the Giant’s Causeway, we had to walk a little because we didn’t pay the „entrance fee“ (it was optional) and weren’t allowed to take the bus but it’s only a short walk, like 15 minutes or something.

the even more famous Giant's Causeway

I confess I was a little disappointed by the Giant’s Causeway, but this could be because the weather wasn’t exactly the best or the fact that the place was swarming with so many tourist that you had to look out where you put your feet. Don’t get me wrong it’s a beautiful place and worth seeing but I think it’s a bit oversold.
Oh and shortly after we left the Causeway my camera battery died and me, being stupid, forgot to pack my spare battery, so I wasn’t able to take pictures of out last stop at the Bushmills distillery. At the distillery we had the opportunity to take a look around at the visitors premises but couldn’t take a tour through the distillery. I bought myself a good whiskey which I will bring home as little souvenir for myself 😀
We arrived in Belfast at around 7:00 pm and after we said our goodbyes and thanks to Ian we went for something to eat and back to the apartment.

On Sunday I basically didn’t do anything except for relax, going through the photos I took on the tour and watch anime on my laptop 😀

I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did.

 

Yours sincerely,

Tobias

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