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The Ulster Way! Whitepark Bay Hostel, the Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Alisa Craig and Islay

 
















I had to leave my new friend Georg behind on the Giant’s Causeway as I was in a hurry to get back before the high tide foreclosed my path. Georg is from Vienna. He and his wife both remotely and are world travelers. He was an entertaining hiking companion. I thought that I had included the myth of the Giant’s Causeway here and now must see if I can find where it vanished. There seems to be a sprite behind the scenes here orchestrating deletions, perhaps a pal of the giant’s nemesis… so I may need to include the story on a fresh slate. It is important that you know the tale of Finn McCool. 














I had to leave my new friend George behind on the Giant’s Causeway as I was in a hurry to make it back before the tide foreclosed my path. Georg is from Vienna. He and his wife both work remotely and are world travelers. He was an entertaining hiking companion

This particular blog seems to have a bit of a sprite in it. I am in Ireland. The myth of the Giant’s Causeway has simply up and vanished as do other photos and insertions here, so I may have to include it on a fresh slate as you do deserve to know the legend of the mighty Finn McCool.



When I returned, my feet wanted the cool sea water to soothe them. But as I headed back down the path, one of my legs cramped. My muscles were like instrument strings reacting to the evening’s chill. I hobbled down to a bench in the sunshine where I pulled on some silk leggings under my pants and sat for a moment shrouded in my warm bamboo blanket. Once I felt sufficiently warmed, I slowly navigated back up the steep path. Outside the hostel I saw Kerrie, one of my roommates. She’s Australian and has been bicycling around the island. She moved out of the room to another that could accommodate a friend of hers from Australia, but who was actually a native Northern Ireland lass returned to the neighborhood to take care of her elderly mother who’d had a fall and broken her wrists. Although I was ready to lie down, I first wanted to briefly respond to something Kerrie had said earlier, so I approached them. They had a wine and cheese party spread out on the bench there which overlooks the sea. They pulled me into their sphere like a magnet. It actually was a bit uncanny to discover within minutes that we had all been widowed young and raised children alone, remaining solo. I’m not sure that in all of these years I’d ever met anyway who shared this experience and now it was like looking in to a mirror. I reminded Lesley exactly of a dear friend of hers, a songwriter who had written a beautiful song (you can find this on YouTube: The Twisted Sisters “Wonder” - not the famous band you may know but a local one, quite talented). I’ve always found it intriguing that I’ve got doppelgängers lurking about. The lassies had been drinking at the pubs all day and Lesley, who has a lovely voice, burst into song. She was so expressive, throwing her arms up in the air each time she sang the refrain “The Wonder of it All.” I hope I never forget the image of her singing in her thick Irish brogue, the islands Of Alisa Craig, Islay and Rathlin behind her. Then she sang Donovan’s 1966 folk song “Isle of Islay.”

When it got cooler, we moved the party inside and Lesley was able to summon a fire using the precious little kindle we had gathered and a fire starter to light the small bucket of coal we had. It would have been an impossible feat really, but I overheard her chanting a spell.


I woke early so that I could make it to Carrick-a-Rede in time for my entry ticket to cross the rope bridge. It seemed at first blush a silly expense and I had dismissed it, but just like the Titanic Museum, everyone I spoke with about it, including Lesley who’d crossed it many times over the course of her life, insisted it was a must-do experience, worth every tuppence. It wasn’t really. The bridge was not as long as the photos make it appear or nearly as daunting. It was just one more attraction where people take selfies. But it did take me as close to Scotland as I am going to get this trip. Has anyone swum from here? You can see from the photos below how very near it is. The views from Carrick-a-Rede Island are truly spectacular, but honestly, they can be seen for free from the mainland.  

If you are planning to say at Whitepark Bay Hostel, which is indeed a fine place, very clean and with the loveliest staff, you can find the tide times at surf-forecast.com or tides chart.com. Being aware of your time constraints is necessary for hiking to the Giant’s Causeway. Again, you cannot cross the rocks at the edge of our beach at high tide and they are quite slippery when the water has gone down as well. Too, wear shoes with ankle support or you will likely slip. Some of the rocks are quite sharp. 

Here is what you are looking at when you round the bend. It’s not so clear when the tide is high if there will be room to squeeze through.




The pictures below were taken on the return.


This is what you will be picking through and clambering over when the tide has pulled back from the cliffs to provide you a throughway. I was grateful to be wearing a pair of rugged pants and have a pair of gloves as well as sturdy shoes, but I confess to seeing a young lassie in a skirt wearing skimpy sequined street sandals and carrying a small dog. I could not bear to turn back and see if she made it. (She had a companion or I would have, even though I didn’t want to.) There are wells of seawater in pools in the rocks and sloppy seaweeds of all sorts among them. The shiny black rocks are especially slick. And the quartz especially jagged.

There is of course the option of taking the Ulster Bus 402 which stops regularly in both directions at the top of the drive down to the hostel. If you decide to spring for a ticket to Carrick-a-Rede, they are sold online by the National Trust and you should do this in advance if you are serious about securing a time slot as it is quite popular. If you are walking from the hostel, give yourself a healthy two hours. I thought I was almost there at Ballintoy Harbor, but the truth is that I would not have made it in time for my time slot had some lassies from Barcelona who had rented a van and were traveling around Ireland for ten days (I think the van was a Windsurfer; they liked it) hadn’t given me a ride up the hill. One of them told me to be sure to go to Sri Lanka once I was in India. I asked her if she had the Ayurvedic treatment where oil is poured over your head that Kerrie had when she was in Sri Lanka and she said she had and it was wonderful. She also suggested a beautiful train ride, purported to be the most beautiful in the world. I laughed because just like the oldest pubs in Dublin and Belfast, I have read so many descriptions of railroad treks that are the most spectacular in the world. One is the toy train from Kalka to Shimla in northeast India, which I hope to ride this Fall. And the train from Coleraine to Londonderry, which I’ll be taking Sunday. The Glacier Express in Switzerland is definitely in the running. 

Here are pictures of the hike to Carrick-a-Rede. Once again, you can find a proper path once you make it around the rocks at the bottom of a sheer bluff, this one to the east of the horseshoe shaped beach just below the hostel. Despite the signs, and the fact that the water is cold and the wind often fierce, people seem to delight in swimming here. With their small children of course.




Even the seaweed here is bright green! The Emerald Isle indeed.







Babar!

You can’t really make out why this is called Elephant Rock from our side of the cliff between us. But it becomes clear looking west.








That’s Rathlin Island in the foreground and Scotland in the background. See what I mean about swimming? And of course a giant could trot on over there, kidnap a lass and be back to Ireland by the morning light.














You can rent kayaks from Ballintoy Harbor. Unlike Carrick-a-Rede where parking is ten pounds, it’s free here. The photo below is from above so you can see where you are paddling out from. The right side actually looked a bit dicey today, but I imagine the vendors there will advise you.





The hues of the water vary with the depth and the changing sunlight, offering a delightful and often surprising palette around each bend.




Babar from a distance sans the sheep who had migrated to the top of a bluff.


The lighting here reminds me of Arles where the slightest shift evokes a dramatic change of mood. Back home again.
 


I have a bite to eat and simply must amble back down to the beach.






The lighting changes subtly every few minutes and you find yourself in a very different world than only a moment before. 


After each of my hikes, I soaked my feet in the refreshing sea so that I could go yet again and I did, heading westward a final time before leaving this lovely place and heading to my next fanciful destination.
This time I tried to be more diligent to capture the true path. So here are yet more pictures.





I didn’t always feel that the locals were especially pleased with me crossing their territory, especially when they stood on the path as though daring me to come through.










The remains of Dunseverick Castle….. Consider this a placeholder. I’ll be back to fill in the stories. This bluff was used as a royal site for his timber castle by Sobhairce, a High King of Ireland, who ruled jointly with his brother Cremona Finn in 500 A.D.  Other tribes occupied and defended the stronghold from invading Vikings over the next thousand years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.














The lighting changes frequently during a day here. As does the weather. There were times during my walk when I was wearing a coat and/or scarf, leggings and even gloves and times when I took all of them off and just drank water until I cooled down.






Wonder upon wonder, and this was just the beginning of my seven week bus tour around the island. Ireland offers a lot of hiking trails. I’d recommend picking up a book and choosing a few for long-distance hiking. But be prepared for rain. I was to learn that the weather on the first part of my trip was unusually mild. I would be caught in many heavy downpours over the successive weeks, but they would always pass, usually within an hour’s time. And you can see them coming if you scan the sky. But you must be nimble in finding a makeshift lean-to and be prepared to navigate paths slick with mud.