Causeway & Bushmills
( Co. Antrim, Northern Island )

On our way to Giant's Causeway, we drove along the Causeway Coast past the towns of Larne, Ballygally, Glenarm, Carnlough, Loughareema, Ballypatrick Forest, Ballycastle, and Carrick-a-rede Island.  Quick lunch in Ballintoy.  After Giant's Causeway, we went to our second Whiskey distillary - Old Bushmills!

"Carrick-a-rede" means "rock in the road."   It's where fishermen for 250 years have set up barriers to catch migrating salmon.  In this case, rock = the island, and road = the ocean.  To reach the nets and the island, we had to walk across a very shaky rope-bridge (fun!) over a 100 feet drop to the rocks and sea below.  Once we reached the island on the other side of the bridge, the ground beneath our feet wasn't quite solid - it was bouncy, like walking on bogland.

GIANT'S CAUSEWAY is advertised as the eighth natural wonder of the world and is also Northern Island's most famous sight.  It's quite a geological phenomenon - 40,000 hexagonal columns of basalt from a 60 million year old honeycomb path from the foot of the cliffs far into the sea.  It's believed that the Causeway resulted from an unusually steady cooling of lava that stimulated crystallization.  We saw these columns when we hiked along the causeway trails.

THE OLD BUSHMILLS DISTILLERY is the oldest licensed whiskey disillery (1608) in the world.  Once again, after a very very informative tour, Gretchen and I volunteered for the whiskey tasting (hey, someone's gotta do it).

Alcoholic Certificate #2