Wimbledon - Day 23

Up early, and down for breakfast at the hotel. I didn't see how much the price was, it was included in the room rate, and I was just glad of the food. Traditional Irish breakfast is odd. Eggs, sausages (here more like hot dogs), mushrooms, and tomatos. At least there was good coffee, and whole meal bread to toast with Marmite. :-) We dropped our laundry off at the desk, and got ready for our day's adventures.

First stop was The Giant's Causeway, which actually was the far end of our day trip loop, at least that was our plan. :-) The legend tells that the giant Finn McCool built the causeway as a way to get to Scotland from Ireland, to fight giants in Scotland, and also that he created the Isle of Man by flinging a chunk of Ireland at his opponent and missing, having it crash into the Irish Sea. The formations were spectacular. There is even one formation called the Giant's boot, that is supposedly a boot he left behind after losing a battle against his Scottish foe. A lot of walking, and some of it down a staircase on the cliff side. It wasn't bad, though the heat had the bugs up in arms, and the nats seemed to bite here, so Colleen was a little annoyed with the swarms. I was too busy sweating profusely. Thankfully, handkerchief is always in tow, and I managed to mop it the best I could.

More Italian students!!! Now, I don't have anything against them individually, but combined, they are self centered, loud, and generally show a lack of concern for the environment or their fellow man. That meant we had to watch as they littered the park, trod through our picture attempts, and just pushed through some areas when we were moving slower than they liked. I won't say it got in the way of our vacation, but it did seem to happen more often than either of us preferred.

We decided to drive down the coast on our way back, somewhat because I had originally thought we'd try to stop at Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge but Colleen knew I'd never cross it, and she wasn't going to go across without me. :-) So, we were already driving down the coast, and there was a "main road" that got us to our next intended stop, and I liked the views as we drove near the Irish Sea. We were driving through Ballycarry, a small coastal town, with a couple of golf courses along the road. In the middle of one, there was an old abby ruin. We literally pulled off the road, and walked onto the course, hoping to find a way in. We found a gate, but it was closed, and Colleen and I took it to mean we couldn't get in. As we were walking out, we saw someone inside the wall, so we were somewhat confused. A golfer on the course stopped and asked if we wanted to get into the abby. We said yes, and he said the gate wasn't locked, just not open. We felt somewhat embarassed, but walked back down and into the abby. It had a ton of old headstones. A lot of them were quite weathered, but we saw dates going back into the middle 1600s. It seemed somewhat odd, because there were also headstones as recent as 1980, but we guessed that they were effectively family plots and the rest of the family was being buried there throughout the years.

We finally made it to Carrickfergus Castle. Now, it is a pretty castle, and was used until well into the 1800s, but it was a bit touristy for our tastes. It had fake statues of "castle folk" throughout and that just seemed somewhat cornball. Still, it was an awesome display, and had a lot of very well preserved rooms in a castle that survived more than one siege. We did have another friendly local experience while getting to the castle. The closest parking was a pay and display lot. That means you walk up to a machine, but in some money and it spits out a ticket indicating how long you can park in the lot. I didn't have any pound coins, and had to find a store to purchase something to make change. A gentleman and his wife were in the lot and they offered to give Colleen a few coins to pay to park. She laughed, and said it wasn't that we didn't have money, just no change and that her husband was on the way to get some. The Irish are truly very friendly people.

Finally back into Belfast, and we had not managed to eat again all day. The trend of the trip. We walked down to a Chinese restaurant, and had some pretty tasty food. We then walked to a grocery store and picked up a few supplies (mostly junk food) and headed back to the hotel. We decided to settle in early, as we had a pretty full day with all the walking and the heat. We still ended up past midnight, but it seemed like we were more relaxed. All we knew was that tomorrow was a driving day, and that we had to wait to pick up our laundry.

Cheers!