Carrick-a-Rede, Giant's Causeway and Bushmills

We started off early again and today we are following the “Coastal Road”. This route starts in Belfast and follows the coast all the way to Londonderry and is described as having views of outstanding beauty. Our first stop along the route is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The bridge was originally built by fishermen to gain easier access to the island for fishing. Now this bridge is used by tourists. The surrounding area was amazing and you could see many birds flying and nesting along the coastal walls. Crossing the bridge was not as “daring” as it looks in photos. Our next stop along the coastal road is the more famous “Giant’s Causeway”. Formed by lava millions of years ago, the Giant’s Causeway looks like many perfectly shaped hexagon steps that run out into the sea. An island in Scotland also has the same formations. The story goes like this; Finn McCool and a giant in Scotland wanted to do battle so Finn McCool built the causeway to go battle Scotland’s giant. However, upon seeing the much larger Scottish giant he flees back to Ireland, the Scottish giant in turn uses the Causeway to go to Ireland and fight. However, Finn McCool’s wife dresses him up as a baby to trick the much larger giant. He buys the trick and flees in terror at the potential size of Finn McCool and destroyes the causeway as he goes so that Finn can’t follow. Our next stop was the Bushmill’s campsite. It was still fairly early in the day so we decided to walk into town to visit the distillery for a tour. We had just over an hour to wait for the next tour to start so we went into town and had something to eat. The distillery tour was short and very similar to the Famous Grouse, but for some reason this tour was much hotter than that one. We had the choice of 4 different Irish whiskey’s to try, so Julie tried the sweetest one, the Black Bush and I tried the Special reserve that is only sold at the distillery. I didn’t like it very much, but thankfully Julie enjoyed hers. We made our way to the campsite and used the free WiFi that was strangely located in the laundry/dishwashing room. The showers at this campsite were the best we have had in Europe – we might even go as far as to say they were the best we’ve ever had anywhere.

Broughshane

It was dark and foggy when we arrived at the port city of Larne, which didn’t help us navigate towards our stop in Broughshane. We picked up a Northern Ireland Camping guidebook in London and in the inside cover there was an article on their very first “Camping Aires”. Apparently the guy traveled through France and loved the aires there so much that he had one placed in his hometown. This was great news for us, as everything would be closed once we arrived. Finding the town proved to be a little tricky at first, as the fog was so thick, I missed a few turns because I couldn’t see them. Eventually we found the aires and settled for the night.

Stranraer

This small port town was supposed to be where we caught the ferry to Belfast, but a smaller port called Cairnryan just down the road would take us to Larne, a city just north of Belfast. This route is the cheapest and shortest at £136 and 2hours. Since it was our original plan to head to Larne, not Belfast, we chose this route. We watched the 5 o’clock ferry leave the port just was we showed up at the ticket office. So we managed to get on the 8pm one with P&O ferries. The ferry had a movie lounge and was showing an absolutely dreadful movie called “Daddy Day Camp”. With nothing else to do, and it being a 2hr trip, we decided to take in this movie as we both hadn’t seen it. We truly hope a different movie will be played on the return trip. After the movie we saw that in the “kiddies playroom” they were playing “Surfs Up!” , which we both would have preferred watching. The ferry crossing was really smooth which was good for Julie, as she was able to walk around this time and she even managed to eat a little too.

Culzean Castle

Culzean castle gardens cover many acres of land along the coast. The castle itself was nothing spectacular, but Julie did see the grand staircase she would like to have in her future dream home (when we win the lottery), unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures. We could have spent the day exploring the grounds at Culzean, but we decided to check out the aviary and be on our way. The aviary was closed due to construction so we ended up heading off to our next stop, Stranraer.

The Famous Grousse

We had a jam packed day today. First, we were to head to the Famous Grouse to sample some Scottish whiskey, then it was off to Glasgow to explore, if we decided not to visit Glasgow once we arrived, it was off to Culzean Castle. This didn’t happen though, as we never made it passed the Famous Grouse distillery. While we were getting our things together to visit the distillery we realized we were blocking access to a car (A lady and her baby). We promptly apologized and got out of their way then made our way to the distillery for a tour. It turned out that they had a deal on, The Malt whiskey tour for the price of a lesser tour. Naturally I said yes but the lady explained to us that we arrived just after the tour left and would have to wait 1 hour or we could tag onto the tour that had just started. We decided to tag onto the tour that had just started so we didn’t have a chance to get an explanation of what “The Malt Whiskey” tour entailed. During the tour a young lady approached Julie and I, asking if we were Canadians. Julie’s watch strap has a Canadian flag on it and it was this that she had spotted. We ended up chatting with her for the remainder of the tour (when it permitted). The basic tour includes a sample of the Famous Grouse whiskey. They had a scratch and sniff card to help you find the smells in the scotch. Oh, we were also told that the Grouse’s name is Gilbert, after the local team rugby ball. We parted ways with our new friend here, as she was on the basic tour. The Malt whiskey tour includes a video on all the brands of whiskey made by the company and an odd, incomplete, explanation on the “Grouse’s” animation for the video. From here we were escorted to the café where we would sample 4 other scotch’s. There were two that we liked but the only one we remember was Highland Park, as it was our favourite of the two. This was a nice Scotch that is made in the Orkney Islands (we were told that it was a nice scotch from the tour bus driver but didn’t get a chance to sample it at the time). The seven of us sat at the table and had the chance to sample the whiskey at our leisure. Julie and I don’t do so well with that, and managed to have them all down in minutes. I was a little buzzed and decided to have a bite to eat and wait before driving anywhere further. During our tasting, the young lady came up to us and asked if we could give her a ride back to her hostel (she had walked to the distillery and it wasn’t a short or pleasant walk). Of course we said yes and when we were done our small lunch, we took off for her nearby hostel. During our lunch we realized none of us had introduced ourselves (we tend to do this a lot and sometimes end up never learning the names of people we talk to), so we rectified that and quickly got acquainted. Karen’s hostel was only a few km down the road and she invited us to hang out for a bit, and possibly see if we could park the van overnight at the hostel. The people that owned and ran Comrie Croft Hostel had no problems at all with us staying overnight in the parking lot and told us to make ourselves at home. That decided our night. We ended up hanging out inside the lovely hostel and talking with Karen (Toronto), Mel (from London, England) and a German family (from Stuttgart, Germany. Who were in fact the family that were parked next to us when we got to the distillery). Completely random, but Julie and I had a great time. The next morning we talked with Karen a bit more before heading off for Culzean Castle. Karen had told us that Glasgow is a lot like Toronto and well worth the visit. Unfortunately, we ended up skipping it as it didn’t seem to have anything that really interested us. Julie did suggest to me that we visit Glasgow if it means we find a bottle of Tobermory for my Dad. We have been trying to find this particular whiskey for some time with no luck. We passed the Tobermory distillery before we learned it was the scotch to bring home.

Glencoe

Today’s drive was relatively simple, as was the day. The Glencoe campsite is beautifully situated among mountains, has loads of hiking trails and next door is the Glencoe Visitors Centre. Unfortunately, our health hasn’t been the greatest of late so we had to skip on the hiking. So, we set up our lawn chairs and relaxed. Our drive took us passed Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak. There are so many mountains in this area that we couldn’t tell which one was Ben Nevis and most mountains seem to start with the name “Ben”.

Balmacara

Unfortunately this drive was much longer than we both had thought it would be. Our intentions were to visit the Isle of Skye, while using the campsite at Balmacara as a base. It was roughly three in the afternoon when we arrived in Balmacara, we were both exhausted from the drive and decided to skip our driving tour of the Isle of Skye. Gas is expensive and we’re broke, so spending money to drive around an island with beautiful coastlines didn’t really seem all that important. We have seen beautiful coastlines and we are heading to Ireland which is said to have the best. With the decision made we relaxed in the van for the remainder of the day.