Tag: bridge

Carrick-a-Rede

SDSpivey

I awoke early this morning, and I saw that the car parked in front of me had left, so I took the opportunity to back the car into the street and turn it around so I could back up the steep hill and park in front of the apartment. This made loading our bags into the car much better, but the car groaned mightily trying to go up the hill.

We had to leave Derry for Belfast. We had been to the Giant’s Causeway a few days ago, but had over looked the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge nearby. With a small detour to the trip, we headed out to the north coast, yet again.

As we arrived, the sun was just starting to peek out against the clouds, enough that we could see mainland Scotland better than before, plus it was larger.

The map sign showed puffins on the little island past the rope bridge, but they are either too small to see or too good at hiding.

It was only a 1km hike down to the rope bridge, but it was a lot of up and down the hills.

Once across, the grass is lush and green, with small white and yellow flowers all over, plus a golden moss or lichen covers the rocks. Very pretty, but also slippery.

After our hike back, we went into the “tea room” to get something. We both had corned beef sandwiches and a drink. My drink was a lightly carbonated elderflower beverage. It was a bit strange tasting, but not bad.

We then drove down to Antrim, to see the Antrim Castle. Slight problem, the castle burned down in 1922, so there is only a stepping stone outline of where the castle was. Lame.

Near the castle site, there is a hill with a trail circling around to the top. We went up, but there wasn’t anything there, not even a statue or plaque. More lame. Even the view up there wasn’t that great, it looked down on 2 grassy areas and a brick wall.

There were some gardens to browse around, but we had already seen several that were much better.

Time to head to the apartment.

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Downtown Derry-Londonderry

SDSpivey

We really haven’t spent much time in any cities since Dublin, and there wasn’t much to see around anyway, so we walked down, across the bridge to the city walls. Derry has one of the few double decker bridges in Europe and has the only remaining “full” city walls, they were never breached.

Derry is a city full of past trouble. It is the battle ground between the Irish Nationalists (for a free Ireland) and the Unionists (loyalist to the UK crown). Even the name of the city is rife with difficulty. The legal name is “Londonderry”, but it has long been called just “Derry” also.

The city was even a center to the turbulent times referred to simply as “The Troubles.” This was a time of terrorist tactics of shootings and bombings of public places, starting in the 1960’s and having deaths as late as 2002.

We ambled along, enjoying the sights, nothing really new or noteworthy, but enjoyable. Until mom spotted a Hop-On bus sign. Wait a minute, I bought tickets for the Derry Hop-On bus before we left, Unfortunately, the bus here only makes one round per hour, so we had to wait 30-40 minutes.

We took the whole tour, coming back to where we started, mainly because the driver never stopped at the places he was supposed to stop. Also, nothing looked interesting enough to stop at.

It was just a mile to the house, so we went across the Peace Bridge and walked down the street.

Ready for a nap.