A Wet and Windy Weekend

Hello folks! How’re you all this evening then? I’ve just about warmed up again after a weekend off gallivanting ’round the countryside. My god it can rain in this place! We were up at the Causeway Coast for a friend’s hen and seriously, the weather was wild. Would blow the head off ye, as they say round here. Great fun though!

Anyway,  while it didn’t spoil the craic too much, the bone-saturating-sogginess did mean we weren’t able to show off how utterly spectacular a spot it is to any of the English girls who’d come along.  And that the photos I’d planned on taking to show it off to you guys didn’t come out quite so scenic either! Typical, the weather’s beautiful now everyone’s away home again.

Ah well, sure it’ll give me a good excuse to head back some day during the summer; it’s only up the road from me really but my lack of transportation means I’ll have to wait for the tourist buses to start up again. For now these dreary shots will have to do. (Click on each of them for one or two more in Flickr.)
 

The Giant’s Causeway
On a clear day you can actually see both Scotland and Donegal at the same time from here. I’m not going to get into the myth and legend of the place now, if you’re not already familiar with it ask Google. All I’ll say is that it’s a place of many happy memories for me. We used to go up all the time when we were wee and the stones and stories made for hours of fun.

Mussenden Temple
I always thought this place was just a little tourist attraction, built back when the area was one of the most popular tourist destinations in Victorian Britain, but when I looked it up there I found out it’s actually much older. Turns out it was originally a library built as part of a larger estate in the 1700s, the ruins of which you can access quite easily. Usually - when we were up at the weekend the field you have to traipse through to get to it was just too mucky. 

You know, when I was at college I used to get the train that goes through the tunnel directly underneath the temple all the time and that part of the journey was always my favourite. On down the track a little bit the cliffs are lined with waterfalls, so as you travel past you have the crashing Atlantic waves on one side and those on the other. It’s magical. I really must grab my sister’s SLR and head up there some sunny day.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

 What can I say, I’m just a big chicken. A chicken with vertigo, who gets dizzy changing a light bulb. So no, I didn’t cross it. I’ve never crossed it, and probably never will. This time I actually bought the ticket to cross, but on the subsequent walk from the kiosk to the bridge I realised the only reason you had to actually buy the ticket was because The National Trust, who never charge admission fees, obviously must have to pay huge public liability insurance for the site. When I got there I asked the guy if anyone had ever fallen off, and he answered ‘not today’.  You might say that’s just a corny joke but when I pressed him he wouldn’t answer anything else! Hmmm… So no, I didn’t cross it. Pity too, apparently the wee island on the other side is really very pretty.