It's 6am when alarm clocks rings on Thursday morning, normal? No. But at that specific date the car engine started at 7am taking five persons (Me and four Germans!!!) first to a scenic driving route along Antrim coast all way up to Derry and from there on to counties of Donegal and Sligo before returning Maynooth.
Let's start to talk about weather first which is probably one of the most common topics in Ireland and if you think why, keep reading further... Day started as a grey and cloudy looking and according to weather forecast some rain showers were to be expected. Quite soon after getting on the highway we noticed that these "rain showers" meant long lasting hard rain with some foggy air. But at same time as hours were passing during day the weather changed about like this: Rain-Sun-Rain-Sun-Hail-Sun-Snow-Rain-Sun-Rain ... Weird, eh?
Anyway that's it for the weather and for the main story.
After early morning and driving of few hours our route took us through Belfast and of course the time of the morning traffic... If we would have been wise, we would have stopped before Belfast to a gas station for bathroom but none of us weren't that smart and while we were standing in traffic it was the time to face reality: Need for bathroom! Without knowing how long it would take trough traffic we pulled of from highway to look out a bathroom in Belfast and jeazus that whole process took us three or four stops in the city and about half hour before managed to find one... But finally it was worth it.
From there on we continued finally to Antrim coast. The road itself followed the coastline North from Belfast around the North-East corner of the Northern Ireland through nice looking small villages full of summer villas, and then leading us first to a Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge before Unesco's world heritage site Giant's Causeway. The rope bridge is about 20 meters long to the long island just sea & rocks underneath, even that the bridge is obviously well secured it was still able bounce on it and feel adrenaline boosting... Giant's Causeway is a amazing rock formations of hexagonal stone columns side by side, never saw anything like that before!
The day started to be over and evening was rising smoothly when we left from Giant's Causeway to our last stop for the day, Derry. There we stayed one night in hostel paying only 1£ per night per person!!! I couldn't believe that it was real when I booked the hostel but there were hundreds of reviews with average of 93% ... Checking in the truth was told why the price was so cheap: There was another hostel in town that was a lousy place and going bankrupt so as a final hope they offered room "come for free and pay what you think it was worth it" bases... So it forced this other hostel for a short period of time offer beds also for that cheap price and we were lucky enough to be there at that time. At hostel we met Danish girl who was an erasmus student in Belfast travelling by herself few days.. We invited her to have a dinner with us and finally we ended up inviting her to join us for next day with us since we had a free seat in the car. And yes what a relief, I wasn't anymore alone with four Germans :D Waking up in the morning before leaving Derry we went to "Free Derry Museum" and took part of the Bogside walking tour to learn about history from the murals in the area. Bogside was a focus point of many events taking place during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Probably the most known single event is day called Bloody Sunday when 14 civilians were killed by British soldiers.
Not a long after leaving Derry we crossed the border back to the Republic of Ireland, only thing how we were actually able to spot that we had changed country was a traffic sign where speed limit was marked km/h instead of mph/h. Driving trough Donegal while it was raining and even snowing at some points but who can say that has been driving in "snowstorm" in Ireland in March, I can ;-) Destination was Slieve League Cliffs. They are similar than Cliffs of Moher expect Slieve League Cliffs are longer, three times higher, no visitor center and only accessible by car so no bus loads of tourist. And indeed it was stunning almost untouchable landscape especially after rain when air was misty... Mystical I say.
Seeing views from higher point of course there was a need for an opposite view to compare so the road lead us next down to the beach. Feeling light sea wind in smooth sand where we wrote our names and draw some pictures, only if it would be 20 degrees warmer I would have said that I was somewhere in Southern Europe. On the way home we stopped kind of middle of nowhere on the side of rocky coast to see the sunset. Wind was blowing quite hard at this time and tides were also rising so huge waves were crashing on the rocks at same time when sun was slowly setting down behind the horizon. Finishing our trip we stopped on the way Maynooth at McDonalds to have a dinner, devilishly delicious option :P
Let's start to talk about weather first which is probably one of the most common topics in Ireland and if you think why, keep reading further... Day started as a grey and cloudy looking and according to weather forecast some rain showers were to be expected. Quite soon after getting on the highway we noticed that these "rain showers" meant long lasting hard rain with some foggy air. But at same time as hours were passing during day the weather changed about like this: Rain-Sun-Rain-Sun-Hail-Sun-Snow-Rain-Sun-Rain ... Weird, eh?
Anyway that's it for the weather and for the main story.
After early morning and driving of few hours our route took us through Belfast and of course the time of the morning traffic... If we would have been wise, we would have stopped before Belfast to a gas station for bathroom but none of us weren't that smart and while we were standing in traffic it was the time to face reality: Need for bathroom! Without knowing how long it would take trough traffic we pulled of from highway to look out a bathroom in Belfast and jeazus that whole process took us three or four stops in the city and about half hour before managed to find one... But finally it was worth it.From there on we continued finally to Antrim coast. The road itself followed the coastline North from Belfast around the North-East corner of the Northern Ireland through nice looking small villages full of summer villas, and then leading us first to a Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge before Unesco's world heritage site Giant's Causeway. The rope bridge is about 20 meters long to the long island just sea & rocks underneath, even that the bridge is obviously well secured it was still able bounce on it and feel adrenaline boosting... Giant's Causeway is a amazing rock formations of hexagonal stone columns side by side, never saw anything like that before!
The day started to be over and evening was rising smoothly when we left from Giant's Causeway to our last stop for the day, Derry. There we stayed one night in hostel paying only 1£ per night per person!!! I couldn't believe that it was real when I booked the hostel but there were hundreds of reviews with average of 93% ... Checking in the truth was told why the price was so cheap: There was another hostel in town that was a lousy place and going bankrupt so as a final hope they offered room "come for free and pay what you think it was worth it" bases... So it forced this other hostel for a short period of time offer beds also for that cheap price and we were lucky enough to be there at that time. At hostel we met Danish girl who was an erasmus student in Belfast travelling by herself few days.. We invited her to have a dinner with us and finally we ended up inviting her to join us for next day with us since we had a free seat in the car. And yes what a relief, I wasn't anymore alone with four Germans :D Waking up in the morning before leaving Derry we went to "Free Derry Museum" and took part of the Bogside walking tour to learn about history from the murals in the area. Bogside was a focus point of many events taking place during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Probably the most known single event is day called Bloody Sunday when 14 civilians were killed by British soldiers.
Not a long after leaving Derry we crossed the border back to the Republic of Ireland, only thing how we were actually able to spot that we had changed country was a traffic sign where speed limit was marked km/h instead of mph/h. Driving trough Donegal while it was raining and even snowing at some points but who can say that has been driving in "snowstorm" in Ireland in March, I can ;-) Destination was Slieve League Cliffs. They are similar than Cliffs of Moher expect Slieve League Cliffs are longer, three times higher, no visitor center and only accessible by car so no bus loads of tourist. And indeed it was stunning almost untouchable landscape especially after rain when air was misty... Mystical I say.Seeing views from higher point of course there was a need for an opposite view to compare so the road lead us next down to the beach. Feeling light sea wind in smooth sand where we wrote our names and draw some pictures, only if it would be 20 degrees warmer I would have said that I was somewhere in Southern Europe. On the way home we stopped kind of middle of nowhere on the side of rocky coast to see the sunset. Wind was blowing quite hard at this time and tides were also rising so huge waves were crashing on the rocks at same time when sun was slowly setting down behind the horizon. Finishing our trip we stopped on the way Maynooth at McDonalds to have a dinner, devilishly delicious option :P
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti