Kanga And Wombats Adventures

Day 21

Crossing into Northern Ireland was no drama. No borders, no passports needed. But subtly, the scenery changed. Stone fences were replaced with hedges, miles replaced kilometres, we paid in pounds and not Euros. Weird!

Our Airbnb last night was situated beside a stream near the village of Strocum. Words of wisdom were displayed on the wall.

It afforded us some privacy and quietness, and with decent internet speed, allowed me to catch up with blogging!

The area’s claim to fame is having a GOT set close by called Dark Hedges. We visited about 9pm and there were still about 20 people there.

Quite beautiful. The Dark Hedges feature in Series 2, when Arya flees King’s Landing in the back of a wagon, disguised as a boy (for those of you who care)!

As it turned out, it was the first of two GOT settings we saw today.

Our first stop today was The Giant’s Causeway. A total experience! Starting at the state of the art visitors centre, you don an interpretive narrative recorder with headphones, then proceed down a pathway towards the Causeway, about a km away.

Along the pathway, this rocky outcrop was pointed out to us… can you see a camel??

There were lots of tourists at The Causeway, even though the rain was lightly spitting.

The formations are quite spectacular, but glad we saw them at low tide! This one half way up the adjacent cliff is called ‘The Organ’.

And this is the view from above.

Only about 10kms further along the coast is the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Built by fishermen to reach a rocky outcrop off shore, a 1m wide structure of wire rope and planks sway 30m above a chasm of swirling water. Not the most pleasant of experiences!

Our car was parked in what you might think is a carpark, but no! Another GOT setting, this time the scene where Brienn of Tarth first makes her appearance, fighting against Loras Tyrol in front of Marjery and Renly. Series 2.

Travelling down the east coast was so different from the Wild Atlantic Way. Dramatic cliffs were replaced by rolling hills, the coast road came down to sea level, gently curling around the headlands.

Our destination for the night was Carrickfergus, a township about 10kms north of Belfast. Our hosts Walter and Irene are just beautiful. Walter immediately took us on a drive to ‘get our bearings’, talk about the royal tour! This is what the view looked like from our bedroom when we arrived. The bottom pic is what it looked like at 10pm when we returned from dinner!

And it’s the middle of summer!