Driving the Coastal Route up to the Giant's Causeway

We left Dublin early this morning to pick up our car rental at the airport, and I'm happy to report that we survived our first day driving, sitting on the wrong side of the car and occupying the wrong side of the road. Although we had the first leg of the journey on a highway, once we passed Belfast, we got on the scenic coastal road from Carrickfergus all the way north to the Causeway Coast. The scenic route is a narrow two lane road that hugs the coast going in and out of small villages along the way. It is a breathtaking drive, I'm sure, if you are a practiced UK driver, but I was lucky to catch any of the splendor out of the corner of my eyes between roundabouts and hairpin turns that demanded my constant attention to keep within the dotted white line to my right and the non-existent shoulder of the road on the left, a narrow squeeze at best!

We are staying in Northern Ireland, County Antrim, for two nights in a beautifully restored 18th century house full of antiques and Asian art collected by the B&B owners during their travels. There are sheep sleeping on the hillside outside our window, which also offers a magnificent view of the sea. We arrived just in time for tea, and after shaking off the sense of relief of having made it through the first big drive, we got back in the car for a short adventure to see the Giant's Causeway in the glow of the late afternoon, after park hours, when it might be quiet and somewhat solitary. And what a gift! It is hard to describe the utter beauty of nature, especially when it presents itself in an unfamiliar guise. The story of the Giant's Causeway is both truth and fiction: geology, physics, and myth offer explanations worth knowing.

The myth has to do with two quarreling giants, Benandonner, a Scottish giant, and Finn MacCool a somewhat smaller (16 meters or so, I wonder what a large giant's reach is?) Irish giant. Legend goes that they had a running shouting match going on across the sea challenging one another for a test of strength. Finn MacCool took up the challenge and built out a bridge of rocks on which to cross the sea, so the games could begin, but he got so tuckered out from his task that he fell asleep right in the middle of the causeway. His wife, good woman that she was, found him just in the nick of time as Benandonner was crossing the causeway. Once she saw how truly BIG a giant Benandonner was, she took matters into her own hands, dressed her snoozing husband Finn in a baby bonnet and put a blanket over him. When Benandonner crashed up to them, she warned him not to wake Finn's baby. When Benandonner saw the HUGE baby (Finn, really) under the blanket, he high-tailed it back across the causeway in fear of his life. After all, if the baby of Finn MacCool was that large, then how large would his father be? Benandonner didn't want to find out and in his rush, his giant feet splayed the path in the pattern of hexagonal columns that the causeway now embodies. The geology and physics explanation is basically that the Giant's Causeway consists of roughly 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns that were formed by volcanic action. It's a lot more complicated and interesting than that, but the legend is somehow more fun. Sheep dot the highland pastures about the coastline, evoking an Odysseus adventure with the giant cyclops!

Tomorrow, we'll step out onto the Cerrick-a-rede rope bridge spanning the 75 ft. deep chasm of Larrybane bay! I'm working on how to set up links or feeds to our photos online, but Internet service is slow and iffy at best when there is any, so be patient dear friends.