Floyd's Travels and Thoughts on Life: May 2018

In late April 2018 daughter Susan and I traveled to Northern Ireland to do some self-guided long-distance hiking along the Antrim Coast and Devil's Causeway. This region of coastline is considered to be one of the most dramatic in all of Europe. Our itinerary was arranged by Macs Adventure, a company I have used in the past. They booked us into B & B accommodations during our 6-day hike and arranged for a luggage transport service to transport our large backpacks from one place to the next, so that all we needed to carry with us was a small backpack.
We flew from Madison, WI to Chicago, and from there to Dublin. At the Dublin airport we got a bus to Belfast. Once in Belfast we got another bus to Ballymena, where we spent 2 hours before we got another bus to Cushendall, our final destination and where we began our hike. We spent the next day exploring beautiful Glenariff Forest Park, then finally hiked back to Cushendall. Glenariff was a lovely place, with forests and many trails, the most dramatic of which was the Waterfalls Trail. We walked down an elaborate wooden walkway through a valley following the Glenariff River, encountering one waterfall after another. The following day we hiked to the coastal town of Ballycastle, and the next day we took the ferry from Ballycastle to Rathlin Island, where we hiked to the lighthouse at the West End of the island. There we saw large offshore rocks and rugged coastal cliffs festooned with many thousands of sea birds -- guillemots, terns, gulls, razorbills, and the bird that draws many tourists to the area -- puffins. The following day we hiked from Ballycastle to Ballintoy. Before arriving in Ballintoy we walked across the popular Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. On the next day we hiked from Ballintoy along the Causeway Coast Way to the Giant's Causeway. On this day we saw some dramatic coastal scenery and rock formations. On the final day of our walk, we hiked from the Devil's Causeway to the lovely coastal town of Portstewart. Except for one day of fierce winds and cold temperatures, the weather was wonderful and we only got rained on twice during short showers.
Leaving our B & B in Portstewart we took a bus to Coleraine, and from there got on a train to Dublin, capital of the Republic of Ireland. Once there we put away our British pounds and started using Euros. We walked from the bus station to our lodging for 4 nights, the Gresham Hotel on O'Connell Street. We traveled to Limerick to tour King John's Castle, then continued to Ireland's west coast to see the famous Cliffs of Moher. We took the hop-on hop-off bus to explore Dublin, we saw a performance at the famous Abbey Theater, and had a tour of Butler's Chocolate Factory, where we got to decorate our own chocolate elephant. In Dublin I had an opportunity to visit with my second cousin Linda Hawkins and her husband Mike, who accompanied us to the chocolate factory and to Kealy's for a pub lunch afterward, and Susan and I were able to rendezvous with Sister Majella, who joined us for tea at the Gresham. I taught with Sr. Majella at St. Theresa's College in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1965-66, and it was nice to be able to see her again after so many years.
Below are some photo's showing some of what we did and saw during our 73 mile hike along the Antrim Coast in Northern Ireland, and our time in Dublin and the Irish Republic.