May 8 - Drive to Malin Head, Giant’s Causeway and Bushmills

Time to relocate again.  We took a fairly direct route near Derry where we then veered off along scenic routes into the Inishowen Peninsula.  Much of the scenery is similar as elsewhere.  

The yellow hillside is a mass of blooming gorse.

The pigs and tractor are round bales of hay decorated for an upcoming event.

We dis make it all the way up to Malin Head, the northern most point in Ireland. 

It was cold and windy so we didn't take any of the long walks...just enjoyed the scenery and took a few pictures.  From there it is just more wandering along the backroads.

At some point we crossed the border into Northern Ireland and the UK…however we saw no signposts of any sort.  We found the City Walls of Derry.  Derry has the only city walls in Ireland that are completely intact.  We walked the entire circuit, which wasn’t very long.  

There were quite a few churches...

and a "Wee" church with a lovely interior and gorgeous azaleas blooming all over the grounds.

And there was a lot of "wee" things besides the wee church - there was a wee pub, and an asterisk was described as a wee star.

And we saw some interesting and unusual artwork.

Then it was off to Bushmills for a three night stay.

The weather was fairly good so we went directly to the Giant’s Causeway.  The causeway is an area of about 40,000 basalt columns that are the result of ancient volcanic activity.  Most of the columns are hexagonal and are pretty easy to walk on when they are intact.  A lot of the area is in rubble. The area of columns continues on the Scottish island of Staffa, just across the sea.

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More photos of the Giant's Causeway
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We walked the area a bit and enjoyed the salt air but not the cold wind.  It was a long walk down and then back up.

We then made it to the hotel just a very few miles away.  Bushmills is the home of Bushmills distillery, reputed to be the oldest licensed distillery in the world.  We decided not to tour the distillery.

The hotel obviously has very old roots and is large and sprawly.  The restaurant was very good and relatively expensive.  (But not as expensive as Ashford Castle.)