The only thing that throws my left-hand driving confidence now is the fact that people just park on whatever side of the street they want, regardless of driving direction. On narrow city streets that could definitely be one-way streets but maybe aren’t, this is exceptionally confusing. Why!? This is a lawless land.
Our theme today: cliffs, mostly, and some spooky trees. We’re heading along the Wild Atlantic Way, stopping to see ruins, castles, bridges, and rocks!
Our first stop of the day was the Dark Hedges, a road sheltered by 150-year-old spooky beech trees, and filming location for the King’s road in Game of Thrones. The trees were originally planted to be an imposing estate entrance and they’re still impressive today.
The hedges are popular and can get quite crowded, and we managed to arrive before the tourist hordes and buses descended upon the small road. I don’t really want to share tiny Irish roads with tour buses more than necessary.
You can safely walk from end to end of the Dark Hedges road itself – you’re not allowed to park on the road or drive down the road (unless you are a naughty tourist, from perhaps an east asian country, who disregards signs habitually). Since we were there early, there were far more sheep than people around us. Excellent.
After cafe brunch in Ballycastle, we headed west on the Wild Atlantic Coast drive to Mussenden Temple and Downhill Demense, our furthest destination for the day. Downhill Demense is perched on a very windy clifftop (making it actually up a hill…), with an impressive shaded garden surrounding the base of the hill and the approach to the manor.
Once you pass through the thickly-wooded gardens, you emerge into a completely open field dominated by a dilapidated manor. The manor was owned and managed by a wealthy family (the Earl of Bristol) through 1944, and has fallen to subsequent ruin. The interior was surprisingly well-mowed given its state of ruin.
The exterior 
Nicely mowed hallway 
View to the east 
The manor itself
Behind the manor and standing precariously at the cliff’s edge is Mussenden temple, which was named for the Earl’s very beautiful cousin. That certainly doesn’t sound like incest at all. It originally housed a cozy reading area and lots of bookshelves. Thanks to erosion, it’s now virtually at the edge of the cliff, but it was originally possible to drive a carriage around the outside.
View out the back window of the temple 
The temple! 
The west window overlooks the beach 
It is beach. 
Just a cliff out back, no big deal
Before we left the demense, we visited the mausoleum on the hilltop near the exit. No ghosts to report, but I nearly fell down the hill attempting to take a picture of it.
Since we haven’t had enough fancy ruined houses for the day, we set out for Dunluce Castle, atop another cliff, as you do in Ireland. Dunluce Castle was built starting in the 1300s, and was an active settlement through the late 1600s.
I assume this hole in the ground in the castle is where the toilets were 
So fancy 
View from the east windows 
Fireplace (Ashlee for scale) 
We are a beautiful bunch 
Castle atop the cliff
Much of the town surrounding Dunluce Castle is still being unearthed by active archaeological digs. In modern TV magic history, it was also the site for Pike Castle in Game of Thrones (which I didn’t realize until later).
From Dunluce, we headed east to join the tourist hordes at the Giant’s Causeway. The Giant’s Causeway is full of columnar basalt (just like Iceland!), and you can walk on these with hundreds of your fellow foreigners.
We took the park and ride from the nearby town, which spared us the cluster for parking at the top of the hill. With admission, you get access to the park & ride and a neat audio guided tour. The audio guides look a lot like phones and they trigger whenever you get near certain points of interest.
We hiked down from the visitors’ center, which was a pretty hike around the Cow’s Bay and a pair of rocks that looked like a camel. You could see columnar basalt everywhere. You can walk and climb on it near the sea shore, and if you are a crazy person, you can hike up a long and winding path to see more of it in the mountain side. I’ll just enjoy it by climbing on the basalt near the shore with the other plebs, thanks.
Climbing the basalt! 
View from the causeway 
Crazy people can hike by these rocks 
Jazz hands for basalt 
But our tiring day isn’t over yet – we have one last stop! The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which is a narrow rope ridge set up by fishermen to connect a small island to the mainland (I guess Ireland is just another large island…is it still a mainland?).
We got there too late to cross the bridge, but all of us agreed we’d rather see it and NOT walk across it. We all like life. A nice lady told us which path to walk on the get the best picture of the bridge.
Things I ain’t walking on: this bridge 
Pretty white cliffs!
Tomorrow, we leave Ballycastle and Northern Ireland for Galway, hopefully stopping at the White Marble Arch caves on our way.
I yam very sad to leave. Just positively squashed.
