The Giant's Causeway

Yesterday we drove about 4 hours from Belfast to Bushmills via the coastal road. Thee drive was awesome. Tiny roads and amazing scenery. Bushmills is a quaint little Irish town and home to the oldest whisky distillery in the world. This morning we woke up and drove to Carrick-a-Rede to start our 20 km hike along the cliffs to the Giant's Causeway.

Wow. The first of 100 wows throughout the day. Simply breathtaking.

The 30 m high rope bridge in Carrick-a-Rede was first placed by salmon fishermen a hundred years ago and is now a major tourist attraction. We were there early and pretty much had it all to ourselves. It doesn't look that high but it was!  

Just a little prequel to the dramatic cliffs we would be hiking over all morning.  

If you look really hard you can see the rope bridge at the deep V just right of center. You can't see it in this photo, but Scotland is out in the distance as well.

Beautiful wheat fields blowing in the wind and sweet little white stuccoed Irish village.

Gorgeous colors...golden yellow wheat, bright green grass, deep blue water, cloudy blue sky, and purple thistle and bluebonnets.

Cute harbor.

Happy sheep.

As you may have noticed, this is really a geologically unique area. During the course of the trail we passed over white, red, blue and black basalt rock and some pretty cool formations.

That's a keeper.

Alex on the cliffs.

More spectacular views looking back along the trail.

This is about as close as I would get to the edge. The wind was insane and my irrational fear of heights was definitely kicking in.

Alex on another spectacular point. The stacked rock formation is known as "The Chimneys" and was formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago. For some geologic reason, the rock formed into these unique tall column-like forms.

The Giant's Causeway. The end of the hike and popular tourist destination to walk out onto the stepped rocks that form the causeway. Legend has it that the Irish warrior Finn MacCool (not even kidding) used the stairs to cross the water and defeat his Scottish rival Benandonner. 

Awesome, awesome, awesome day. Great exercise. Breathtaking views. Few tourists. And we couldn't have had more perfect weather (it started raining right as we arrived at the parking lot). Wow.

Now off to the "Hip Chip" in Bushmills for some hot fried deliciousness!