Sav: Today we did our first guided bus tour! We woke up early and hopped on a Giant’s Causeway all day bus tour that also took us to a few different places. We first stopped at Carrickfergus Castle, mostly for some photos. The tour guide was loud and really funny and explained a lot of history on the area which was nice, and something we had been lacking in a lot of the placed we’ve seen up till now.

Next stop we went to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which was wonderful! We hiked (walked…) up and over to the bridge along this beautifully picturesque Irish path on the coast, and crossed the bridge. It wasn’t all that high but being on the island on the other side was totally worth it! The wind was crazy but the view was breath-taking! We explored a little bit and took some fun photos (Meaghan kept referencing having a natural wind-machine for our hair!) and then slowly made our way back along a different path.

Meaghan: Our weather luck continued today – it was beautiful and sunny yet again! It was perfect for seeing all the sites. We stopped at Bushmills Distillery for lunch of steak and Guinness pie. Maybe it’s because we are starving every time we get food, but so far everything we have eaten (aside from a horrible bus sandwich) has been delicious. It is the oldest distillery in Ireland, operating since 1608.

On our way to Giant’s Causeway after lunch we stopped off at Dunluce Castle. It belonged to the MacDonald family for something like 400 years but is in ruins now on the edge of a cliff. There was a huge storm a long time ago that ripped off the kitchen part of the castle into the sea!

When we finally got to Giant’s Causeway we were surprised. It was not what we were expecting…

S: We kept looking for it… Not realizing we were looking AT it. It was beautiful and certainly a geological feat but considering it’s called Giant’s Causeway I think we were both expecting it to be MASSIVE. From far away we felt like this but once we got up close that’s when we were really impressed. It’s a large expanse of land completely made up of hexagonal rocks, all of them are hexagons! ALL. OF. THEM. Seriously it looks like humans must have made it but the impressive part is that it’s completely natural columns made from lava hitting the sea in a particular way.

The legend says that the Giant Finn McCool wanted to fight the giant from Scotland, and they built a causeway towards each other. When the Scottish giant finally made it across the causeway, Finn’s wife instead hid Finn in their baby’s crib, and when the Scottish giant saw Finn in the crib he said “if this is McCool’s baby I don’t want to know how big McCool himself is!” And he ran away and ripped up the causeway on his way home.

Meaghan and I had a grand old time taking pictures that made her look giant and me look small in the background.

M: Well we didn’t need to try that hard to make Savanna look small.

The more time we spent there, the more impressed I was with the whole thing! It is the weirdest thing, the hexagons are so perfect and all flat. We also watched a couple get engaged, so congratulations to them!

There was more excited hand flapping from Savanna when we drove by a couple Game of Thrones locations. We drove by the place they shoot the Wall elevator or something. Savanna, help me out here.

S: The wall where castle black is in the show… The entrance and elevator part!!

M: Kelly (the Alaskan we met in Galway) arrived tonight and joined us on Gordy’s Great Belfast Pub Crawl! As with everything else Gordy suggested, it was a ton of fun.

S: we checked out 5 different places and got a real taste of what Irish drinking is like, and it was a ton of fun exploring a new area of the city. The whole idea Meaghan and I had was to very late celebrate turning 23 this year, as it’s been over 5 years since we’ve celebrated our birthdays together. It was a great night!

S&M