The glens of Antrim are calling me home

     The Emerald Isle earned its name for a reason  - never have I seen such greenery packed into every nook and cranny of a countryside!
     Today we took a coach tour to the north coast of Northern Ireland through County Antrim, to see the Giant's Causeway, poke around the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in Ireland (1608, although they were making whiskey well before then!), cross the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, and drive along the scenic coast road. That meant we got to drive through quite a bit of countryside and see some stunning places. It was a wonderful day. The tour guide was very informative, and gave a lot of history of the country and each of the little sea-side towns we drove past. It was kind of a rainy day, but that just made it all the more authentic, and it as it was still reasonably warm, it was actually quite nice weather to be hiking around in!
     On to pictures, which will tell the better story anyway:

Dunlap Castle - Abandoned since the 1680s, when a fire destroyed the interior, this castle has been falling into the sea since at least the 1640s. It took them a while to give it up.

The Giant's Causeway is a ~60 million year old basaltic lava flow that has cooled naturally into these large, regular, hexagonal columns. Or, it was built by the giant Finn McCool as a walkway to Scotland, so he could challenge the scottish giant Benandonner to a duel. Except that Benandonner was bigger and scarier, so Finn ran back to Ireland to hide. He was saved by his wife, who swaddled Finn up like a baby,  so that when Benandonner came knocking, she told him that Finn was not at home, and she was had just put the "baby" down for a nap, so could Benandonner please keep it down. When Benandonner saw the size of Finn's baby, he decided he didn't want to mess with his dad, so he then high-tailed it back to Scotland, rolling the footpath up behind him. Either story seems reasonable.

Seriously, though. Columnar basalt is super common, but this is the most impressive outcrop I've seen, in terms of exposure and regularity. It forms when basaltic lave (relatively low in silicon and fairly fluid) overruns a cold substrate and has a top exposed to air, so it has two cooling surfaces. Fracture propagate between the surfaces in the most energy efficient manner, which forms hexagonal blocks. The more even and regular the cooling surfaces, the more even and regular the jointing.

They make perfect natural seats!

And are so straight!! And tall!

Look at that handsome rock! I mean man.

We perched on the side of the trail to eat lunch, which I think amused most of the passer-bys. One of them was very insistent that he take a photo for us!

After visiting the Giant's Causeway, we went to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. This bridge connects the mainland to a small island, which used to host a very profitable salmon fishing station. Apparently this used to be where "North Atlantic Salmon" would come from! Unfortunately as wild salmon populations have collapsed, so has this fishing industry, but the site is still preserved as a tourist attraction.

The sea is beautiful.

We were very surprised that the old fishery was actually open - apparently it's only open 14 days a year, and we managed to catch one of the last tours on the last day! Apparently there are something like 30,000 visitors to Carrick-a-rede rope bridge each year, but only a thousand or so of them get to actually see inside the little fishing huts and get a proper talk about it! Lucky us!

And of course we crossed the bridge. This is quite the upgrade over what the fishermen used to have - two ropes with a few slats and only one handrail. This one is very well engineered and gets replaced every two years, since it is now such a popular tourist destination.

"It's not like I'm afraid of heights, or anything" says the man standing on a swinging bridge 30 meters above the ocean.

We also stopped in a few little seaside town along the way - they were all very picturesque!

P.S. Happy Father's Day!