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| From My Pictures |
To say I slept soundly is an understatement, comatose is probably a better description. I woke at the seemingly unearthly hour of 3.45am and enjoyed breakfast that had been left out for me whilst overlooking the beaches of Castlerock in the distance,
The route today was destined to be one of the best of the trip so far. The combination of excellent roads, hardly any traffic, stunning coastal views and perfect cycling weather made this by far the best day so far.
I slipped out of Port Stewart and headed across to Portrush pausing just enough time to take a photo back towards town. It was a strange feeling because suddenly I was back in a typical British seaside resort even down to the chip bags blowing in the wind. The road signs were the familiar British ones, I had pounds in my wallet and the whole "feel" of the place was more British than the Irish I was so used to. Perhaps it was the fact that the roads didn’t look like roadwork’s in progress or the fact that the coastline was so developed with all sorts of tourist attractions but it certainly felt like a completely different place.
The cycling was a joy. With no cars except the occasional taxi heading home I had the whole road to myself and as it wound gently up and down I had some spectacular early morning views.
Dotted along this part of the coast were a number of castles all perched on precarious cliff tops. One of these was Dunluce Castle, built in the 13th century, which was occupied until the 17th century. This magnificent castle was quite a sight
From there the route took me through Bushmills home of the oldest legally brewed whiskey in Ireland (or so the signposts said). Being a whiskey brewed in the North I hadn't actually heard of it until this weekend. It was only the weekend before I had been taking Susie back to Sweden when I saw a bottle for sale in the Duty Free at Dublin airport. For some reason I thought it was an American whiskey, fine connoisseur I make!
From Bushmills the next place of interest was the Giants Causeway. This is Ireland’s first World heritage site and is a very unusual rock formation formed 60 million years ago. 37,000 or so black basalt columns, mostly hexagonal columns on the edge of the sea. Legend has it that the giant Fionn McCumhail built the causeway out to the Scottish island of Staffa where his fancy lived.
What seemed strange is that access to the stones was so unrestricted. Many of them showed signs of wear and tear from the countless tourists that have walked over them. I guess at some stage they will have to rope it off to save it from just wearing away which would be a shame.
Not far from the causeway was yet another unusual attraction. The rope bridge at Carrick-A-Rede was quite impressive as was the coastline out to it.
The bridge itself used to be constructed each year by the Salmon fishermen who ran the salmon fishery on the island. Now it’s a National Trust site and the bridge is permanent.
Next stop was Ballycastle and then out on the coast road around Torr head where I was able to see the Mull of Kintyre in the far distance, yes it really was Scotland that I could see. The scenery in this area was just stunning and the climbs up the hills were perpendicular!! Still it was well worth the effort and I was so glad I chose to come this way instead of taking the A2.
Once I was past Torr Head and through the Glens of Antrim I joined the A2 again and followed its lazy meanderings all the way to Belfast. This road was a joy as it was level, flat and barely a few feet from the sea the whole way. It was also very popular with motor bikes that whizzed up and down past me. At Carrickfergus was a very impressive castle and of course coming into Belfast I could make out the famous Harland and Wolfe shipyard with their distinctive cranes where the Titanic was built.
On arriving in Belfast I was able to locate the main railway station and took the short trip back to Dublin. An amazing weekend of cycling and amazing to think that I am almost finished, only 1 weekend of cycling left to get back to Dublin.
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