Giant's Causeway (Bushmill)

Today the plan is to go from here (Londonderry) to Giant's Causeway. I check out from the hostel, walk to the bus station and wait for the free shuttle bus to the train station on the other side of the river. There it is crowded and the train goes almost immediately. The train goes beautifully along the Northern-Northern coast and after two short stops and three quarters of an hour I arrive in Coleraine where I take the local bus to the small town of Bushmill.

I check in on an almost bare campsite and after setting up my tent on a zig-zag lawn, I walk back to the biggest attraction in Northern Ireland Giant's Causeway. It will be a hike of about 3 km along the oldest legal whiskey distillery worldwide that is dangerously close to my campsite. Many British and English flags are my part through the village. 

After Bushmill, the footpath suddenly stops along the road and I will have to find my way along the hollow road next to the many passing cars, busses and lorries to the side. The wind is blowing firmly here because there are no trees and the sea is nearby and it also starts to rain. Luckily I took my umbrella with me and I have to take care of it so it doesn’t blow away. Finally I arrive at the Giant's Causeway. I see a beautiful old building called the The Nook and behind it a brand new visitor center.

Here are dozens of buses, a parking lot full of cars and campers. The entrance fee is £ 9 which shocks me. I decide not to go in. I walk underneath a gate and did I miss the ticket office or is this part for free? Suddenly I walk along a beautiful stretch of coast and appearantly you just have to pay fort he visitor centre/museum.

On the path towards the site it’s very crowded with tourists of all nationalities. Then I see what I came for - the giant path with 40,000 basalt columns - it looks like stone piles standing upright in the ground and forming a path in the sea. Legend has it that a giant from Ireland saw another giant in Scotland. The giant from Scotland tried to challenge the Irish giant and built a long road (the giant path) to Scotland.

When the Irish giant saw the Scottish giant sleeping he saw that it was much bigger than himself and ran back quickly. The Scott used the path made by the Irish and went looking for the Irishman. The Irish mother giant invented a ruse-she left the great Scottish giant in their house and poured him something to drink. De Scott did not trust it at all and went looking in the house and found a baby giant in a crib. If the child were already so big, how big would his father be?

The Scottish giant left immediately and quickly ran back to Scotland, leaving the trail behind him in ruins. Reality is not half as fun; the rocks would have arisen at a volcanic eruption, some 60 million years ago. The poles are of different colors (light brown and even black); this is the only UNESCO site in Northern Ireland. Every time I want to take some pictures with few pictures, another bus stops and a crowd of people rushes over the stones.

Nevertheless, there are possibilities to sit quietly at the poles where little pools of water has formed in the cups of the stones. At the beginning of the path it really looks like a road and there I walk further towards the next bay where you can see the organ - a strange wall of stone that indeed resembles an organ.

If you walk a bit further from the actual (touristic) site under a stone gate you enter the amphitheater. Unfortunately you can not continue due to the fact that rocks have fallen down and it’s dangerous. The bay below is the Spanish bay. This is so called because here the Spanish Armada ship De Girona was hit by a storm like many other Spanish ships that were driven north by the Channel and went ashore by shipwreck.

It was 1588 when the Girona fled north from a confrontation with Sir Walter Raleigh in the English Channel. When it hit the rocks there were not 500 (as was common) people a board but 1300 – these were mostly Spanish people from other ships that went down or were stranded somewhere.

Many were highly placed Spanish aristocrats. About 12 people survived. It took until 1968 until the ship was examined at the bottom of the sea by archaeologists. The Spanish treasure with many valuables is now in the museum of Belfast.

I walk back via the Giant’s rocks and take another path at the junction to the visitor center - the red shepherd path with its 162 steps. This will take to me to the top of the hill. At the top you immediately feel the wind of which you were partly blocked by the high "walls" of the rocks.

After walking fora bout 20 meters on the plateau, where it is very green and behind the low fences sheep and cows graze, it starts to rain. An umbrella does not make any sense here because of the strong wind. I just hope it won’t go on all the way. From here you now have a beautiful panorama over the sea to Scotland and the beautiful coastline with the Giant's Causeway from which you can see from here that it actually runs into the sea like a real walkway.  

I'm soaked when I arrive at the visitors centre en tell the guy that I just want to go to the toilet inside. I see that tickets are checked thoroughly and I wonder if it’s worth inside to pay the 9 pound entrance free. When a side door opens up I sneak in anyway to check if I’m right. First I go to the toilet to get out of sight and then I have time to take a quiet look around. A lot of souvenirs, information about the coast and for example the animals that live around here.

Also a film about the legend of the giants and a large scale model. Do people pay so much money for this? I look on a screen to the movie about coast and then ask a girl how I return to Bushmills.