Wanderung 34

Drive to Giant's Causeway

We had seen the political signs all over Ireland during our driving tour there about their constitutional referendum. My impression was that there was a majority of "No" signs, but the election results reported in an RTE exit poll suggested that "Yes" votes for repeal of the amendment restricting abortions would in fact carry the day. The final, official result reported that evening was 66.5% Yes, versus 33.5% No. So 2 out of 3 Irish voters decided to let their legislative branch enact some form of abortion-allowing laws.

The exit poll details are interesting because there does NOT appear to be a big gender difference on this issue as 69% of men and 72.1% of women supported repeal. That's pretty close and tends to disconfirm that abortion was either a specifically male or specifically female issue.

But there DOES appear to be an age difference because the youngest 18-24 voters overwhelming supported repeal at 87.6%, and the 25-34 voters almost as strongly at 84.6%. Support declines for the young middle aged 35-49 year old voters at 72.8% and the old middle age 50-64 voters at 63.7%. The old fogies over 65 were the only age group voting primarily NO at 58.7% (which would be just 41.3% YES for repeal). So the decline of support with age is very clear, and the take-home message is that for some kinds of social change in a democracy, the older generation simply has to mostly die off and the younger generation has to come out and vote!

After breakfast, we were on our way around the city of Derry and on eastward to the Giant's Causeway on the northern coast. Our route was a string of roundabouts that skirt the northern edge of Derry and lead directly to a big bridge over the end of the bay on the north side of the city. That route successfully kept us out of the downtown Derry traffic, for which I was profoundly grateful.

From Derry we drove pretty straight East to Coleraine, but then branched northwards to get to the northern coast of Ireland, which our Hertz map indicated would be scenic. It was, in fact, quite scenic, and not too hard driving, both of which I appreciated. The seashore development reminded me very much of other beachfront communities in our area such as Bethany Beach in Delaware. We knew we were getting somewhere close to the Giant's Causeway, so we stopped at an overlook to take pictures. Sure enough, off to the East we could see headlands that looked like they might be our target, but on the next headland over we saw some ruins that looked mighty interesting.

Even more surprising was the intricately carved and sculpted soft white chalk cliffs that we could see back to the West. If we had not stopped, we would have never seen them at all and they were quite beautiful, similar to the 12 Apostels sculptured sandstone on the southern coastline of Victoria, Australia, but in white chalk instead. I saw caves, archways, and odd upthrust remnants of the ancient seabed all cramped together, but they were in shadow so I don't know how well the pictures I took will come out.

Continuing on, we kept an eye out for the turnoff for the ruins we had seen, and found a sign pointing in the correct direction that said "Dunluce Castle" and we turned in there, barely finding a place to park (too small for tour buses). But what an interesting stop that was also, because the castle, built in the 1500s, was a fantastic example of a seaside fortress of the late Middle Ages. Back in Viking times, a wooden motte and Bailey had probably stood on the site, but Scottish kings and Irish kings later fortified that position with a stone castle in their ongoing wars with each other.

The castle was really quite a large complex with a whole set of buildings on the top of the end of the peninsula, but what was quite astonishing was the inner fortified structure that housed the king, which was built on a separate spire of rock about 30 feet out from the cliff face. Today a bridge crosses that gap and leads to the old castle gate, but back then I assume they either used some kind of drawbridge or suspension bridge that could be quickly removed if an enemy attacked. One thing that I can say for sure, is that the attackers would have been at the bottom of a wide gap or ditch about 50 feet deep and facing a sheer cliff face of rock on all sides that they would have to scale before even beginning to attack the castle on the little mount. That just looked terribly daunting to me, and I was surprised that although built by an Irish King, the castle had fallen to a Scottish King, who maintained possession for a century or so. But I suppose a long siege could take any castle even back then.

There was even a tower at one end of the main keep that we could climb up and look out over the cliffs and seashore on either side of us, and that was fun too. I suspect the tower had been taller in the 1500s and 1600s, but we could still go up what was left of it. Returning to the front entrance, we also visited the Discovery Center, which was educational and informative as it told about the scientific archeological digs in various places in the castle that had turned up evidence about everyday life in each time period. That was interesting, but not nearly as exciting as the ruin itself.

Reluctantly we climbed back in the car and drove the next couple of miles to the Giant's Causeway, which was a totally different experience. The parking lot there was already full, and Monika counted 8 tourist buses parked in a row, so we found wall-to-wall people there rather than the occasional visitor we saw in Dunluce Castle. In fact, we were forced to park in a satellite parking lot down the street past the local school, and then purchase admission tickets and walk 10 minutes or so on the cliff side path back to the official entrance. Not a problem as along the way I saw a home for solitary bees, and I learned that some bee species are in fact solitary rather than hive animals, and not just the bumblebee but some regular honeybees. Who knew?

Once in the official Vistor Center, we entered the human swarm that was pushing through the gates and walking down a roughly mile-long road to the actual rocks of the Giant's Causeway. We walked down, taking pictures of the tumbled lava rocks at the seaside along the way to Windy Gap, where a kind of rock funnel truly amplifies the wind apparently most of the days of the year--it certainly functioned that way the day we visited.

Passing Windy Gap we continued to the odd rock formation that is called the Giant's Causeway because the same unique rock formation can be found on the western coast of Scotland, across the Irish Sea from Northern Ireland. The formation consists of columnar pillars of basalt, created when molten lava rock caught in cracks in the limestone, cooled just slowly enough to kind of crystallize into hexagonally-shaped columns. These columns look somewhat like the tops of huge stepping stones, so the legends about the Irish giant Finn McCool creating them to reach over to Scotland were formed to explain them. That funny story was related to us on the audio-tour devices that were included with the price of admission, and I do recommend that you get one of those and listen to the stories to entertain yourself as you walk down to the formation and back.

We clambered around the formation for a while, carefully using the columns at different heights as a makeshift stairway to go up and around the foundation. Of course, millions of people have walked those paths before us, so the tops of the columns in many places are worn and polished smooth. In dry weather the footing is only slightly slippery, but I really would be careful about walking on the tops of the columns if it is raining, and we were warned not to go out to where the waves were breaking over the end of the formation as the basalt tops were very slippery out there.

We considered walking a big switchback up to the cliff top hiking path, but I was antsy about the drive down to the B&B that we had reserved for the night as I was totally unsure how long the drive would take. So we opted to take save time and effort by taking the shuttle bus back up to the Visitor Center, which cost us 1 pound each. If we go again, I would definitely like to have to the time to walk up to that cliff-top path and get an overview of the Giant's Causeway from above.

Once back at the Visitor's Center, we had a really nice, if belated, lunch of Irish stew plus wheaten bread, which I highly recommend if you come in the middle of the day. That re-energized us to walk back along the cliff top path to our car and start the drive southwards to the B&B we had reserved for the night. In the end, the drive went much more quickly and less stressfully than I had imagined, and I regretted not taking the time to walk more of the paths around the Giant's Causeway. Sigh, maybe next time.

The drive back South was surprisingly relaxing as well as fast. I encountered an unexpected section of dual carriage way (i.e. Motorway or Interstate highway) along our route, which allowed me to drive sedately in the "slow-traffic" lane on the far left. And then for maybe 30 kilometers of the 2-lane highway afer that, I was following a big tanker truck of some kind. Since the truck was big and awkward, the driver set a very nice, gentle pace, and by watching the truck ahead I could clearly see exactly where and how I had to turn in the centers of the little towns we went through. Very useful, having a path-breaking truck!

I wasn't fresh as a daisy, but I still had energy left when we arrived at our B&B, so we went right back out again to drive to Aughnacloy just down the road to get some sandwiches and a beer for dinner. Back at our B&B, we just relaxed and put our feet up before turning in for the night.