Day 39: Bushmills to Portglanone

June 22, 2024

Giant's Causeway

We started the day by riding out to the Giant's Causeway from Bushmills. We'd intended to use the cycle route on the old railway, but there was a charity walk in progress with over 3,000 participants. We stuck to riding the road instead.

Giant's Causeway is an UNESCO World Heritage Site managed by the National Trust. It is made up of some 40,000 massive black basalt hexagonal columns sticking out of the sea. The dramatic sight has inspired legends of giants striding over the sea to Scotland.

One legend has it that an Irish giant named Finn McCool created a causeway to get across the Irish Sea to face his rival, the Scottish giant Benandonner. Following their fearsome meeting, Benandonner ripped up the causeway as he fled back to Scotland. Finn McCool's giant boot lies fossilized at the Giant's Causeway, too.

Welcome to Giant's Causeway (with all the tourists). This place is utterly amazing.

Some stones where domed and some were concave while others were relatively flat.

Enjoying almost sunny weather exploring the stones.

These stones are tightly knitted together and we noticed that water doesn't seem to dissipate between the stones.

Out on the tip of the causeway looking back.

The columnar stone stacks. If you look closely you may notice that each column looks like stones stacked upon stones.

Sitting and enjoying Mother Nature's miracle. (The other "best travel partner")

From on top of the ridge looking down onto the causeway.

Another sample of the colorful Atlantic and here we said goodbye to her as we head inland now.

After walking around for a couple of hours we settled onto the saddles and headed south, starting our two day trip to Belfast. Most of the touristic activities on this adventure are checked off. Who knows if we will find some more unexpected adventures, but now it is just a matter of riding small farm roads all the way to Belfast. Unlike yesterday, today there was a little bit of blue sky and sun to lift our spirits. The roads were bigger than those experienced over the past few weeks and most of the surfaces were smooth. Traffic was minimal even when on designated two lane roads. Today's traffic consisted of more tractors than we have seen on any other day during our adventure. The scenery was green farmland, but not with the bit of "wild" flavor as seen in the Republic.

The farms here come in various shades of green.

We've seen mostly cows today, very few sheep.

Sample of the quiet roads we were riding.

We saw some scouts learning how to paddle canoes.

We're overnighting in Portglanone tonight and had a nice walk down Main Street. Dinner at the Wild Duck Inn was yummy. And the day stayed dry. It was a good day and my opinion of Northern Ireland has improved.

Note to ourselves: Great day in the sun and clouds. Vests and arms were plenty to start and the vests were shed about 2/3rd of the way. We learned that changing shoes is easy. Glad we walked around Giant's Causeway in sneakers instead of cycling shoes.

Accommodation: The Tree House B&B in Portglanone is very comfortable. Gail, our host, has to leave very early tomorrow, so we are on our own for breakfast.

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,589 km (1,608 miles)

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