The weekend trip required absolutely no planning on my part, since it was organised by IES staff members. Even our meals were planned and paid for (and boy, were they delicious). All I really had to do was pack my bag and meet at the bus station (granted we did have to meet there quite early—I woke up at 6:45 for the first time since I got over jet-lag). From there, we took a bus to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, which is actually politically part of the United Kingdom. I was making my first trip outside the Republic of Ireland!
Of course, this came with some stipulations: our cell phones operated on different rates, we had to use the British Pound currency instead of the Euro, and we had to carry our passports.
We arrived in Belfast, and began an eating spree at the Crown Bar, an old Victorian-styled restaurant. The décor of the restaurant was mind-blowingly ornate, but what was really impressive was the food they served us. I ordered a DELICIOUS Beef and Guinness Pie, which was essentially stewed steak under a flaky pastry, and probably contained enough salt to last me until November.
The guides on the Black Cab tour were incredibly knowledgeable, and were dedicated to presenting the situation from multiple perspectives—each of the four drivers spoke at a different section of the tour, and brought something different to the table. Incredibly, there still exists a barrier known as the “Peace Line,” which is essentially the Berlin Wall of Northern Ireland. It separates communities that are whole-heartedly Unionist from those that are staunchly Republican. When the Peace Line was first erected, it was six feet high, but because of violence throughout the 1980s and on, the wall was incrementally built up, and stands at 42 feet in some sections to prevent people from throwing explosives over it! I got to sign a section of the wall:
The Black Cabs tour of Belfast was another reminder of the often-intolerable world in which we live. Yet the graffiti on the wall was visually and memorably triumphant in my mind as we got back on a bus and departed for our next destination, Port Rush, a resort town on the coast of the North Sea.
Though the forecast had called for a completely miserable and rainy weekend, we had not seen rain yet as we arrived in at our hotel in Port Rush. Before dinner, I took a walk along the coast, touched the North Sea, and looked out onto the water that crawled over the horizon to where I knew was the North Pole. I was a gorgeous evening, and all the more tranquil because the buzz of the town was shut down because tourist season has finally ended in Ireland.
Dinner deserves its own paragraph. We ate at a restaurant called Coast and it was an unbelievable meal. I had Chilli Chicken Risotto, and though it was a struggle, licked my plate clean. Then I was faced with a massive slice of chocolate fudge cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream—this rivals the Triple Chocolate Meltdown at Applebee’s, my Metuchen friends. After leaving the restaurant, I was convinced my stomach needed the entire rest of the night to process what I had just subjected it to, so I went on a beach walk and then hit the sack.
* * *
My alarm goes off at 6:40 a.m. but I am convinced to sleep another thirty minutes. My goal is to see the sun rise across the water, so I rewake with determination at 7:15, and trudge downstairs.
I stroll amidst the high grass on the bluffs next to the hotel, and am whipped around by a fierce wind that is the harbinger of the storm that was supposed to roll in yesterday. The sky is clear, however, and though I’m not able to see the sun rising over the water, I experience the gradual lighting of beach as I stroll back for breakfast. These are the last few hours of completely dry weather we will have the remainder of the weekend.
Our first destination for the day is the Old Bushmills Distillery. In comparison to the Jameson Distillery in Dublin, which I visited about two weeks ago, I actually enjoyed Bushmills better because it was the actual location of whiskey manufacturing, while Jameson was simply a museum since actual production moved in the 1970s. Bushmills also gave us a tour of the bottling room, which was like entering an episode of “How It’s Made”—NBJ, you would have drooled. Thankfully, most of this tour was inside, because at this point it was starting to pour outside.
It is after this tour that we are given the unfortunate news that the next item on our itinerary, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge was closed. I am devastated—this rope bridge was something that I had had on my to-do list since the summer. I had been SO excited to see it on the Northern Ireland trip itinerary, and just like that, it was struck off the agenda. (Keep reading though…)
Eamonn, here’s my research: the “causeway” was formed 50 to 60 million years ago when the area was subject to intense volcanic activity, highly fluid basalt found its way into cooling lava. As the lava cooled rapidly, the basalt contracted, both horizontally and vertically; however, the vertical contractions are what are now stunning. The height of the hexagonal prisms indicates the speed and which the basalt cooled. The formation stretches across the sea ten miles to Scotland, where a similar formation remerges on the southern coast.
The term “causeway” is a misnomer of lore. According to Irish legend, the warrior Finn McCool built the causeway as he sought to defeat the Scottish giant Brenandonner. When Brenandonner crossed over to Ireland, he mistook Finn for a sleeping child, and feared that a child of that size must have a much larger patriarchal protector, and thus fled back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he went.
Enough with the background garbage. What an exhilarating experience…
The stupid tourist loses hold of her umbrella and it goes sailing into the abyss.
The sea has worn the columns over the millions of years, but they are still distinctly hexagonal and almost unnatural looking, like the pixels of some dated computer game. I remember a quote from my guidebook by William Thackeray (I don't know his significance, but the quote was poignant): "When the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this must have been the bit left over."I walk away from the columns on a trail that hikes upward, giving tourists a spectacular view from afar. The horizon is now a blur as the wind stirs up the water and the mist hovers above the sea. I hike higher, and finally reach the peak, drenched to the bone, but utterly exhilarated. I take in the magnificence of the view, and the power of Nature as it whips my raincoat against my body.
I turn around and am startled by a herd of sheep, simply grazing and apparently equally unaffected by the torrential downpour. I chuckle to myself, and begin to walk alone along the edge of the cliff. A couple times I find myself doing the rugby plant with my body, so I maintain a safe distance from the cliffs just in case the wind blows just a little too hard.
Drenched, I enter the gift shop where most of the others have already found shelter. I am dripping with water, but completely dry inside. How else should one experience such a place as Giant’s Causeway?
* * *
So it’s Sunday, our last morning in the Port Rush area. The weather has calmed down a little, but the drizzle still continues, and the sun is struggling to shine through the clouds. We are hopeful though, for we have just learned that the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge might open back up today!
We get the confirmation about 15 minutes later, and I am enveloped in excitement. Though I can’t change much, my body yearns to drag people out of the hotel faster and to step a little harder on the gas so that we make it there in time in case it closes early.
When we get there, we are still a one-kilometre walk away, but the winds have died down, and assurance is granted that we will be able to cross! I see the rope bridge far off in the distance, yet it disappears behind cliff edges as we begin to walk the trail toward it.
Before I know it, I turn a corner and it is there right in front of me.
I hurry down the steps a set my first foot on the bridge—WOW. I look down. One hundred feet separate me and the rocky chasm where waves are hurling through the island and the mainland.
I should backtrack. The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge was built a couple hundred years ago by salmon fishermen who realised that the best place to fish was on the outer end of the small island. On the island, there are still the remnants of the moorings and anchors for fishing boats, though the salmon population was decimated and no longer exists there.
* * *
Northern Ireland was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m glad that I got to do some of these activities while I still have the thigh muscles and agility to do them. As we rode along the coast I looked out into the ocean and saw some seabirds flying along the edge of the coastal cliffs. What a life birds have, with the ability to soar around and perch on the inside of cliffs…
But as a human, I’m pretty sure I’ve come as close as one can to flying this weekend.
