Up at 0515, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m actually on holiday, taxi to the city to get a coach to the Giant’s Causeway which is actually in Northern Ireland. The drive took about 3 hours and the driver was one of those people who thinks he is funny because foreigners laugh at his jokes just because they think they should. He also insisted on not only talking all the way there but also burst into the odd song, and regaled us with a couple of verses of traditional Irish songs a couple of times. I half expected him to stop and perform Riverdance. Consequently I didn’t get much of a chance to sleep.
We stopped off at an avenue of trees called the dark bushes which featured in Game of Thrones, although I can’t remember it.
We stopped for lunch at a cafe that was probably paying kickbacks to the coach company so Song and I were a bit dubious but the food was surprisingly good and reasonably priced. I had beef and Guinness pie and Song had leek and potato soup.
The coach carried on and stopped at an old rope bridge which we walked across to a small island, then onto the Giant’s Causeway. The weather was pretty awful – cold, a light rain, windy and about 5C. Wandered around the thing, taking pictures and trying not to get blown into the sea, then went and sat in a pub to wait for the coach. It was interesting, and I think I would have enjoyed it more had the weather been better and my cold gone.
Back on the coach, a quick look at an ancient castle and then a stop off in Belfast which as far as I could tell had no redeeming features and the hour we spent there is an hour of my life I’ll never get back. We just sat in a cafe, watched the rain and miserable people and waited for the coach to leave.
On the way back the driver decided to play some traditional Irish music which was bad enough, but then he insisted on singing along. What was a long day seemed to go on forever.
Got back, it was still raining, walked to the bus stop then crashed in the hotel once again, neither of us fancied eating.
The icing on the cake for the day was the flight to Belgium in a few days had been changed from 0640 to 1830, which stuffed up our plans a bit but could have been worse, at least we didn’t have a connecting flight. We’d have to call the airline to see if they could get us on an earlier one.
Tomorrow we pick up the hire car and drive around Ireland for a few days.
