Dave Byrnes

Round Ireland - 2016

Overview Planned Schedule Map Diary Pictures

Day:	074
Date:	Monday, 6 June 2016
Start:	Bushmills
Finish:	Ballycastle
Daily Kilometres:	30
Total Kilometres:	2041
Weather:	Warm and sunny most of the day, with an occasional cooling breeze
Accommodation:	An Caislean B&B
Nutrition:	Breakfast: Full Ulster Breakfast Lunch: Muesli bars, Snickers Bar, chocolate and ice-cream Dinner: Pizza, strawberry trifle
Aches:	None
Highlight:	The morning grassy clifftop walk along the Causeway Coast with extensive views east and west along the sculptured coast.
Lowlight:	None really
Pictures:	Here
GPS Track:	Here
Journal:	After a late breakfast at the B&B, I started walking at 9:30am on a very warm and sunny morning after a very warm night. Ulster buildings aren't designed for warm weather. For the first hour, I followed a reasonably busy road, with no provision for pedestrians, northwards to rejoin the Ulster Way at the Giant's Causeway. The big Visitor's Centre seemed designed to get you to pay money to visit the Giant's Causeway, but in fine print on one of the signs I read there was no charge to visit the actual geological feature itself, which is what I had expected. I joined a steady stream of tourists walking down to the attraction, an area of about 40,000 interlocking and mostly hexagonal basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption, on a small peninsula jutting out into the ocean. It is very unusual, and in a spectacular location, but I didn't feel the same urge to go clambering all over it as did my fellow tourists. Perhaps that was because of my pack, and the knowledge that I still had a long way to walk for the day. I walked past the Causeway and followed a track that climbed steeply up onto the clifftop overlooking the Causeway and then joined the Ulster Way travelling eastwards along the grassy clifftop. It was nice walking, despite quite a few steep ups and downs, and the views were fantastic. There were a few other walkers and one fit-looking female ran past me at a good pace. It would make a great training run. After a couple of hours the path descended steadily to a car park with a small picnic area and I had a break. I had been warm hiking, but suddenly the sun went behind a cloud, a cold wind sprang up, and I considered putting on a jacket. However, once I started walking again and the sun re-emerged, I warmed up quickly. The trail eventually descended all the way to the rocky shore as it rounded Gid Point and then along the long hard sand beach of White Park Bay. I bet it was crowded yesterday, but today there were just a couple of families and walkers enjoying it. At the other end of the beach, the trail passed a couple of National Trust protected small rocky islands on a very tranquil sea, and then reached the tiny Ballintoy Port where there was a cafe doing a good business and plenty of tourists admiring the scene. From there I followed the tourist road steeply back up to the clifftop and then inland to the village of Ballintoy where I bought myself a drink and an ice-cream. It was already nearly 4pm, and I had another 10km to go. The clifftop walking and the steep climbs had made for a slow pace. The Ulster Way mostly followed the busy tourist road all the way to Ballycastle, and I was once again dodging vehicles. Along the way was a lookout over Carrickarade Island, a National Trust property linked to the mainland by a rope bridge. Apparently the first rope bridge was built by salmon fisherman in 1755. I could have detoured and gone across the bridge, as many tourists were obviously doing, but it was an extra couple of kilometres as well as a lot of climbing and I decided it wasn't a high priority. I reached the pretty beach town of Ballycastle around 6pm and found my B&B without difficulty after a long and tiring day. Tomorrow, I leave the north coast and begin heading south in the direction of Dublin, where I hope to be in two weeks time.