Continued from Belfast Day 2 Part 2.
OK, got all packed up this morning and out the door by 10am. We are leaving Belfast and heading for a drive along the Northern coastline of Ireland.
Some food to sustain us during the drive.
The haul. Not quite like 7 Eleven in Japan, but this will do just fine.
We figured out, due to the skimpiness of the dresses seen at night, that the area of bars next to our hotel is the Dirty 6th equivalent in Austin.
Hahaha. These girls leave our hotel and walk across to the street to meet their friend who had just came back with a car. Let’s see….5 girls, 4 seats, and tons of luggage. Yeah…good luck.
Pay for our parking. 10 Pounds for two nights, not too bad.
Back on the road. It’s super difficult driving in Belfast, even the locals said so. Random two way street turns into one way streets. Cars are allowed to park facing either directions, so sometimes I feel like I am going down the wrong way, when in fact the cars are just parked facing a different way. We drove around by map trying to get onto the highway, but it was hopeless.
After driving around in circles for about 5 minutes, it’s time to break out the gps navigation just to get us onto the highway. Good thing it’s Sunday morning and there aren’t a lot of cars out here.
Come on GPS!
Done!! Finally heading out of the city. KL points.
Tons and tons of roundabouts over here. This is one of the more complicated ones with multiple exits.
So, let’s see which exit we are supposed to take…
Pointing….
More pointing…
Pointing again.
Finally out into the country, there’s a lot of road construction out here though.
More constructions. It makes driving on the wrong side even more difficult, but I am slowly getting a hang of it. I kept on looking outside of the right side to check my center rear mirror that now exists on the other side. When I reverse, I still crane my neck back towards the right instead of towards the left. Reversing is the most difficult for me I think.
It’s so green out here. The temperature is pretty cool, in the low 50s.
I also managed to figure out how to change the digital dash to show speed in mph!!! Now I know how fast I am going!!
Yet more roadwork.
Ireland has super narrow streets, so people often just park onto the sidewalks.
Reached the coast, and it’s awesome.
So green!
Seems like a nice spot to have a light lunch.
Look, driving on the wrong side!!! The roads out here are so narrow, and these are even the two lane roads. There are the small one lane roads where you can only pass through the passing bubbles.
RL loves tombstones…odd, I know.
Reminds me so much of our California road trip.
Hahaha. There were gangs of riders on their old school mopeds blasting up and down the coast. Guessing by their luggage, it’s probably a weekend trip.
KL points.
RL selfie.
Sheep! There’s lots of sheep and cows all over the place.
Found the abandoned friary we’ve been looking for.
There are stairs on both sides of the fence for you to cross the stone fence.
JB making her crossing after RL.
I just strolled right on through!! Ha!! The gate was latched, but it wasn’t locked. Suckers.
The friary.
Again, RL loves tombstones. Some of the stones were so old that it was not possible to read the carving on them.
Crypt?
After the friary, we went looking for King’s Road in Game of Thrones.
Found, it’s off in the middle of no where next to a golf course.
The King’s Road for GoT.
It’s shown in season 1, and I believe episode 2.
Our noble diesel steed. Seat equivalent of the VW Golf.
OK, time to cross the King’s Road.
Ballycastle.
Waterfront park in Ballycastle, with Fair Head in the distance.
Fair Head is that piece of cliff jutting out into the ocean.
The first night we were in Belfast, one of the guy with the Canadian girls worked at this bar in Ballycastle. We thought about giving him a visit, but decided against it because he was so drunk that night he probably doesn’t remember us.
One of those auto cleaning public toilets! I wanted to stay inside while it cleaned itself, but I didn’t want to get splashed full of water.
It floods the whole floor with water during the cleaning cycle.
RL’s snack of choice. So, Ireland is the first place in Europe that we’ve countered with Gluten Free products. The gluten free craze never caught on in the lower countries.
Reached the entrance for Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge.
Stunning.
It’s a little bit of a walk out to the bridge.
There are ruins over there out over those cliffs.
Cows with funny color pattern.
Getting closer. The rope bridge gets us over onto one of the islands.
Reached the bridge, only 8 people at a time.
We all made it over!
To be continued at Derry Part 2.