Castle and Causeway

“Oh wow – this is so weird.”

- My dad's oft-repeated comment in response to the experience of driving on the left side of the road.

Although I'm still not completely at ease when driving on the left, I'm relatively familiar with the process compared to my parents. The decision has been made for me to be the sole driver on the car rental and act as chauffeur for my parents while they're in the UK. Before we flew to Ireland I bought a guidebook with all the rules of the road for the UK. During our flight to Ireland I skimmed through all the rules for drivers and read in detail anything that differs from Canada (e.g. in Canada you can turn right on a red light but in the UK you can't go anywhere on a red light). I'm a bit nervous about being responsible for driving my parents around for the next three weeks, but I'm sure the GPS will be a huge help. I just need to learn to ignore my parents' nervous gasps and arm-rest gripping; I'm sure they'll eventually relax and get accustomed to the feeling of driving on the left.

First stop today was Dunluce Castle, a ruin clinging to the edges of a cliff jutting out into the sea. (In the 1800's the portion of the cliff holding up the kitchen tumbled into the ocean.) The rain started pouring down while we were exploring but after a few minutes of waiting out the worst, we kept exploring.

Archeological excavations of the site recently started.

View from one of the castle windows.

We took a walk along the road to get photos of the castle from a distance.

Mom with a camera, dad with his binoculars - a frequent sight.

Dunluce Castle.

Red phone booths aren't just in London; they're everywhere, even small villages.

Our next site was the Giant's Causeway, an area of interlocking stones resulting from volcanic activity. I've wanted to see this site for quite some time, although I would have preferred to shoot photos in evening light with no tourists around. Not a practical thing on this trip as we had to visit the site late in the morning and it was covered in tourists but I still managed to snag some stranger-free photos.

Dad is quite sick with a cough and cold so he caught the shuttle bus down the hill to the beach and mom and I walked down. As we neared the beach I paused to take a photo and the following conversation occurred - I'm including it here as I'm often asked this question.

Mom: I'm going to take a photo from the same angle and I want to compare and see what you do differently because your pictures always look better than mine.
Me: Well, I'm just doing a general landscape type thing so it won't be very different from yours.
Mom: But what do you look for?
Me: [while looking through the lens] I'm zooming in to cut out the grass right in front of me, looking at the rocks in the distance for composition, checking the seaweed and smaller rocks in the foreground to see if there are any areas I should cut out by zooming in, crouching down to see which angle gives the best reflection of the sky in the tidal pool, and...
Mom: You look at all of that?
Me: Yeah.
Mom: Okay, forget it.

For those of you who have been curious about what goes through my head when I look through the lens, now you know. I make all these considerations in a matter of just a few seconds so it was actually quite interesting to talk through it and realize all the different things I was considering before pushing the shutter button. Now I know why it can be so exhausting to do a portrait session.

The area in the distance dotted with people is the area with the interlocking columns of rock.

Dad perched on one of the highest points of the rock formation, checking out something at sea with his binoculars.

Tiny wildflowers growing amid the rocks, safe from ocean waves.

Dad, mom and me on the Giant's Causeway.

I've seen the Giant's Causeway - a dream fulfilled!

Next was Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge (click the link for info about the history of the site). This is another National Trust site – not something we would have paid to do, but since it was free and along our route, we decided to take a visit. The walk from the car park to the bridge is along a long, beautiful, cliff-side path. The colour of the ocean was more what you'd expect in the tropics - quite stunning.



A man in the line in front of us was terrified to cross the bridge and an older couple, likely his parents or parents-in-law, were chiding him and telling him his whole family had already made it across to the island. We told him to just put one foot in front of the other and he'd get across just fine by avoiding looking down. He pleaded, "But where do I look?" and I told him to stare at the hood on the sweatshirt of the girl in front of him. I've never seen a grown man so terrified of anything. I felt sorry for him but he made it across just fine and crumbled and sat on a rock when he reached his family on the other side. Thankfully they all congratulated him and didn't make fun of him. Although I don't understand such an intense fear of heights, I panic when I go snorkeling (seriously) so I understand the experience of feeling terror over something even when I know the fear is irrational.




By the time we were ready to return to the car, massive storm clouds had formed and we could see the haze of rain falling on the ocean in the distance. As we walked the path back to the car, we pulled on our waterproof jackets just as the downpour hit. Our jeans became soaked but the rain didn't last long and by the time we reached the car our jackets were dry and our jeans only damp. We paid a pound or two for a certificate stating that we had crossed Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge – we figured it would make a fun addition to mom's photo scrapbook for the trip.

Another stop at an intriguing-looking graveyard.

Dad checking out a gravestone.

Not really sure about the formatting of this gravestone:
HERE LIETH
THE BODY OF DIN
NES MURPHY WHO
DEPARTED THIS LI
FE APRIL THE 6TH
1776 AGED 24 YEA
RS

View along the Causeway Coastal Route.

We ate lunch at a little town called Ballycastle – I love the names of towns over here! We took the coastal road around the north coast of Ireland to enjoy views of farmland, rolling hills, and the coast. Tomorrow we're off to Scotland!