GIANT'S CAUSEWAY

We went to Giant's Causeway Saturday. It is on the north coast of Northern Ireland. We drove to Belfast and then decided to take the "Causeway Coastal Route". It takes longer, but the scenery is well worth it. Here are some pictures of our drive up:




It took us 4 1/2 hours to drive up to the Causeway going the Coastal Route. Coming home only took us 3 hours by freeway. They have a little restaurant just down the hill from the parking lot, so we parked first and walked back down. After lunch we went back up but because we felt like we were running out of time, we decided to not go to the film first. That was kind of a bad idea, because if we had gone to the film, (or even looked at the brochure the parking guard had given us when we paid for parking) we would have been better prepared.

We were happy to find out that the heather is in bloom!



We walked down to the causeway from the visitor's center. The first leg is quite steep, and it is quite a ways down there, but it is downhill, so not hard. If we had taken or even looked at our brochure, we would have known some things to look for, like The Wishing Chair, or The Camel, or The Organ, or the Old Lady. These are all rock formations. Another thing we forgot to do was get some Sterling. In Northern Ireland, you are in the UK, so you can't use Euros, but need Sterling. They had a bureau of change at the visitor's center, but all of the gift shops were taking either Euros or Sterling, and some even US dollars, so we didn't think we would need it. We had paid 6 Euro for parking, and he didn't mind taking Euros. The bus ride is 1 pound both ways. One pound to ride down and one pound to ride back. We decided we would walk down and ride back, but we thought we could pay in Euro. Wrong. He would NOT take Euro. I decided to go back before my husband so I could shop at the gift shops. When I got on, he would not take my Euro, but silently pointed back to the bus (telling me I could ride for free). I was very appreciative. He wasn't as nice to my husband, so he had to walk all the way back. :0+
I found out that I had some problems navigating the hexagonal rock formations. Just walking around on them made my vertigo kick in, so I found a nice chair sized hexagon rock and sat down while my husband took pictures with his camera. He took lots more pictures than me, but I just felt like I should take my camera, and it was a good thing I did, because we forgot to bring my husband's camera cable to download his pictures to his computer. So unfortunately these are all the pictures I have. If you google Giant's Causeway, you can see pictures of the hexagonal rocks better.
The rock formations were caused by a volcanic eruptions a really long time ago. The Legend however, states that the Irish warrior Finn MacCool built the Causeway so he could walk to Scotland to fight the Scottish. He fell asleep before he got to Scotland, and a Scottish warrior that was bigger than him came across looking for him. Finn's wife saw him coming so laid a blanket over him and pretended that he was their baby son. When the Scottish warrior saw Finn (as the baby) it scared him to think that a baby was that big, so he ran back to Scotland, tearing up the "bridge" and forming the hexagonal rocks.