Our ferry docked in Belfast at 6:30AM. After a pleasant night of a slightly rocking boat along with what I found to be a comfortable vibration from the engines, I was well rested. This to me was a cost effective way to combine traveling from one location to another with a hotel. Some people saved even more money by not getting a cabin. They simply booked walk-on tickets and slept in the chairs in the lounge. Maybe when I was younger I could have done this, but now I need the comfy bed and a nice shower. Upon disembarking, we grabbed a cab for £20 to drive us to the Belfast City Airport. I later checked and saw the same trip with Uber would have been £13 ... Lesson learned.
At the airport after spending some time with a pleasant couple from Australia we picked up our rental car and headed to the Antrim coast which vies with Dingle as being the prettiest area of coastal Ireland. While the coast is certainly the star of Northern Ireland's show, the interior is no slouch. The hills were taller than I expected and colors more vibrant. Our goal was to reach the "Giant's Causeway" and the environs around it.
The causeway is a natural phenomena that occurred after an ancient magna flow was quickly cooled as it flowed into the ocean contracting and forming basalt pillars. Continued erosion helped to further define the the pillars, thus forming what looked like a causeway sinking into the ocean. The Irish have their own story about two giants each trying to outsmart the other all around the building of the causeway.
After the Giant's Causeway we drove about 5 miles to the village of Bushmills which is the home of Old Bushmills Irish Whiskey. Note that the Irish spell it with an "e", whiskEy, the Scotchmen drop the "e", thus whisky. At Bushmills they claim the "e" stands for excellence. I have been waiting for the distillery ever since we left Lancaster. Old Bushmills is the oldest licensed whiskey/whisky distiller in the world. Although it is about to change, as of now, every bottle of Bushmills starts its life in one mash vat that is the center of the Bushmills' whiskey making operation. In the future, as I sip my Bushmills it will be nice to know that it started its path to my glass at that exact vat.
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