Ballycastle, United Kingdom

Another good smooth early start, bleary eyed but no stress and a short flight landed us in Belfast. Here we picked up our first car of the trip for our two day whisk around the top of the Northern Irish coast. The Hertz lady offered us an upgrade to an Audi A3 diesel for an extra £5 per day so we treated ourselves to that little luxury. She is a nice little car, not quite my Blade but nice! We are using the trusty iPad as a GPS and that was all good as we began our negotiation of the Irish roads.

The roads are not bad, nor are they great. They tend to be narrow with no verges to pull over on unlike what we are used to in NZ. Sign posts could definitely be clearer or better and they love roundabouts with about 8 exits …. For a highway/tourist route the tar-seal is a bit bumpy and lumpy in places. It is nice and easy to drive on the same side as NZ though.

Vern did all the driving and I the navigating as that is our specialities. We headed up the scenic Atrium Coast Tourist drive with the first stop about 35 minutes away at the town of Carrickfergus where they had a festival day. It has a large Norman style castle which we just walked around before having a comfort stop and cup of tea and scone at a supermarket cafe. It was great value at £4 for both of us, and the clotted cream and jam were nice but the scones over here are quite dry and semi flat – not very nice at all. Wherever I have seen them they are the same.

The drive further up the coast was nice enough but nowhere near as scenic as I had imagined or hoped. There are lots of tiny villages along the way but the houses and gardens lacked any real charm, hence the lack of photos. The road is windy and mostly flat, except for when the road rises to go over or around a headland. The sea is greeny blue and there was a good Atlantic wind chopping it up (and cooling us down). It was brisk outside the car but we were thankful to have blue sky and white clouds given the forecast was actually for rain. The route takes you in and out of bays with gentle hills and rounded headlands punctuating the villages. There was not a lot of livestock in the fields – not much activity at all really.

We stopped for a quick photo and maybe an ice-cream (couldn’t find a good place though) at a little town called Carnlough which had a nice breakwater and in a garden near the car park was an amazing peach and purple peony which I poked my camera at. I just love the peonies over here and in Europe – they are so huge and luscious. Not long after this I noticed wild yellow iris’ in the paddock and got Vern to stop the car for a great shot. The mini grass verge actually had a bank which had long grass and plants on and I wanted to lean on this to get the right angle. I touched it first to check it was ok as there were some raspberry type looking leaves and I was unsure if there were prickles in there. I did a light touch and ouch – felt some sharp pain. I quickly withdrew to look for what I thought would be fine thorns on my wrist and palm heel area and couldn’t see any but there were some stinging raised red marks. I took my photo and went back to the car complaining of the increasing pain.

Then the thought hit me – somewhere in the recess of my mind I thought to google stinging nettles and low and behold the picture matched the leaves I saw in the grass. Evil things. I also read that dock leaf juice helped, so the next mission was to drive and try and find some dock leaves! We did find some shortly but they are not juicy like NZ ones and I had to mince up heaps to get enough sap to do the job. LOL, yet another experience to chalk up.

As we got closer to our destination there were lines of motorbikes on the road and a cycle race, then we saw quite a few classic cars. A note on cyclists – here it looks dangerous as anything as there is not much room on a two lane road as it is and they do not bother moving over much – no place for them but they are a real nuisance for cars and I think a hazard to themselves. Other places in Europe have cycle lanes which I think is a much better way for all.

Further on we saw there was a vintage car and tractor rally with many parked on a freshly mown field. We didn’t have time to stop, but it looked great. The scenery up the top got more interesting with a climb up over hills at Torr head providing great views and a higher country vegetation change. Along the whole coastal route you see a few Glens which are like valleys in-between hilly ranges. These are pretty but we are spoilt in New Zealand with similar scenery so it did not wow us as much as a person who is not as fortunate as us to live in a pretty green country with hills and valleys and stunning coast. The countryside in Ireland is not too different to parts of New Zealand in parts.

Our accommodation was just out of the town of Ballycastle which is near the two sights we wanted to see – the Giants Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. It was getting on in the afternoon about 2pm, so we looked for lunch and found a popular small fish and chippy called Mortons by the harbour in Ballycastle. It was a great choice and we got 2 small cod with chips, peas and gravy and a little tray with local lobster, shrimps and crab the latter only being £5. It was delicious and we sat outside in the cool 13 degree breeze eating with gusto. The shrimps were really juicy and sweeter than any I have had, and the crab and lobster also sweet, flavoursome and very fresh.

Re-fuelled we headed on about 20 more minutes to the Giants Causeway which is a world heritage site of unusual rock formations like pillars that are steeped in myth and legend. The story goes that a mighty giant made these, and local people also believe magic is around the stones. Science says it was the result of intense volcanic and geological activity dating 60 million years ago. We paid our £9 each and walked down the hill about 1.5km to the stones and were a little disappointed. Photos I have seen of it were well done and I think there is more hype than what is there. It was different, but not as dramatic or large as I expected. We did take the time to enjoy it as we had come all that way to see it. It does have a nice relaxing atmosphere and its fun to wander and climb and sit on warm rocks and ponder.

Fortunately there is a bus you can take to and from the stones – and for £1 each we took the bus back up the decent incline hill to the car park and made our way to our B&B to check in. The Whin B&B is situated 8 minutes out of Ballycastle in farmland and is 4 star with modern roomy facilities including a bath. There were even nice homemade cookies on our tea tray and a nice deep bath to relax in as well as a shower. The hostess was warm and hospitable and gave us great information on where to go, and what to do and after settling in we headed into town for dinner.

The two places we had picked from her recommendation were opposite each other and the first one was a pub type bistro vs a more upmarket bar/restaurant. As we were trying to get inside the narrow door of choice a/ we were paused by two young men (early and late 20’s) physically supporting 80+ Grandfather who was drunk as a skunk and not wanting to leave. It was hilarious to see and hear him protesting in his thick Irish accent to go back inside and them saying “no Grandad, no more beer” and then he gave us the evils and said something to them along the lines of complaint and thinking it was us kicking him out …. they apologised to us and told him no, we were not kicking him out, we were wanting to go inside! Once the narrow doorway was clear we peered inside to a warm, boozy, noisy old classic pub full of punters, mmmm maybe not the place to have dinner as it was more of a watering hole and also very busy. So we went next door to choice b/ The Chambers and were lucky to get a stool table upstairs – which is like at a bar on stools but you have your own table. After we were seated and had ordered they got even busier so we were lucky to get a place.

We ordered two entrees again, and one main to share plus I got a small Guinness. The Guinness was so nice and creamy and smooth – not like the bottled stuff we get at home. It also gave quite a kick for a small glass. The entrees were absolutely fantastic and reasonably priced too. £6.95 and 7.95. We had a chicken liver parfait with cherry compote and a local soft fresh goats cheese with apple and celery in it, served with local beetroot pickled, whitloof and pine nuts. For a main we had local pork belly, butternut puree, israeli couscous with Mediterranean seasoning (moist), a oven roasted Mediterranean vege timbale, crackle, and fried local squid. We really didn’t expect such a high calibre of dining in little Ballycastle but were delighted to have found such a place. The main was perfect too and cost a reasonable £13.95.

We drove the short distance home, wallowed in the bath and settled in for a great sleep.