Derry / Londonderry — An Elegant Sufficiency

Or more accurately, Greencastle, which is on the other side of the border!

Our guide for the day, Adrian, was prone to a bit of leg pulling and feeling confident that many of his guests on board today would not realise that we had a border to cross, announced that passports or photo id would be required. After all, we’d been expecting to be in Derry/Londonderry today.

Actually, our ship was at anchor in the estuary and our tender ride had taken us to Greencastle, Eire, to the west of the estuary whereas our intended destination, the Giant’s Causeway was to the east and in Northern Ireland, the border being somewhere mid-river.

Looking at the map, there was surely a good reason why we didn’t simply turn right and not left on those boats, but given the circumstances, off we went and a few miles up the road we crossed the border into Northern Ireland without any fuss or bother - of course, no passports needed!

Adrian kept up his commentary as we went, pointing our the “fairy tree” in the field as an illustration of how superstitious people are here. Such trees, growing in the middle of agricultural land are regarded as special and are left in place, even though they are far from convenient.

Eventually, we crossed over the River Foyle bridge and turned to drive northwards on the opposite bank.

We passed our ship over there in the estuary having left it over an hour ago.

Driving through Coleraine gave Adrian an opportunity to explain about the flags, used as indicators of partisan loyalties here and there. Throughout the day, he would offer an insight to such things, for wherever we were and whatever subject he discussed, sadly conflict never seemed far away. His potted history of Ireland was a useful and interesting background to our journey but didn’t make for easy listening at all.

Eventually we reached Bushmills and the coast. We were nearly there - but oh my, there was a huge queue to get into the Causeway site. Adrian explained that we would be assigned a parking space which could be conveniently located - or not.

He hoped that we would be assigned a spot by the hotel, from where there was a short walk to the Visitor Centre. He also used the time we spent waiting to explain what to expect once we got there.

Whilst waiting, we passed by many, many groups and individual families all with the same destination in mind!

Thankfully, we were directed to the very spot that Adrian had hoped for, by the hotel and just steps away from the entrance to the visitor centre. Not only that, but it was dry! Though there was a blustery wind, we were happy the rain had stayed off and we didn’t have to worry about getting wet.

We’d been advised that there were shuttle buses to the causeway but a landslip had interrupted service yesterday. Today it appeared they were running again, so we took Adrian’s advice and stepped on board. We were on a fairly tight schedule and didn’t want to find ourselves short of time. Sadly, however, we couldn’t ride…we didn’t have the £1 cash fare on us and the card reader wasn’t operational on this vehicle.

Never mind, we would have to walk down!

It was not much more than a fifteen minute walk along a well tended pathway and though parts were fairly steep, we had no problem and we told ourselves that the walk would do us good!

We were, however, part of a lengthy procession along that pathway!

I thought I had taken a photograph of the brightly coloured figures in the landscape, but I was mistaken - perhaps your imagination can conjure up the sight of families with small children, elderly people, dogs, groups of youngsters…it seemed as though the world and his wife were here. Some were even having a picnic!

Eventually we reached the start of the causeway itself.

We’d been warned by Adrian to watch our step, for every day someone falls and needs help. As we were faffing around at the bus stop, I heard them talking about making space for the ambulance to get down there and this was all an effective reminder of the need to take care.

We were so happy to be here though. Neither of us felt the need to climb onto the highest stone…

especially not if it involved a wait to take our turn!

We also discovered that not all the stones were terribly secure and some wobbled as we stood on them. So the pair of us were ultra cautious and simply enjoyed the sight rather than the adventure.

Given our tight schedule too, we were keeping an eye on our watches, thinking that if we wanted to ride back up to the Visitor Centre, we’d better watch for the “right” bus, i.e. the one with the working card reader.

All went according to plan, I’m glad to say. We hopped on the electric bus, tapped our card (discovering that as National Trust Members, we could have used the bus free of charge…except we’’d left our membership cards at home!) Back in the visitors centre, we enjoyed a fairly quick look around. I was interested to read of Susanna Drury the artist who many claim introduced the world to the Giant’s Causeway, whilst my Hero spoke to the young woman at the National Trust desk and gathered some information for when we come back here.

There’s no doubt that our appetite has been whetted by this visit and we would very much like to return on a less ordered schedule, with time and space to explore further. This time though, it was time to climb back on the bus with takeway coffees and enjoy the journey back.

A short photo stop at Dunluce Castle and we were on our way back to Greencastle, accompanied by further stories of the Spanish Armada ships wrecked off this coast and other tales from Irish history.