Pictures from Northern Ireland (Sept. 16- 25/ 2008)

To accompany my brief honeymoon write-up from my previous blog, I've decided to include pictures and explanations/ stories from our trip. This might be a long one... we've got a lot of pictures. Some go without explanation...

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Driving on the 'wrong' side of the road ... Ambulance... cool, eh?


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"Straw Hill" -- our 'home' in Donaughcloney, ... Very Jane Austen! ... It was really quite a lovely place to stay.



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With Granny and Granda (they're both 90!)... At the family construction factory, Granda gave us a tour.



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McDonald's in Belfast :-) ... ... ... ... Murals in Belfast... constant reminders of the Troubles of the 70's


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Driving up the Antrim Coast ... That's Scotland in the background ... ... An 'artistic' shot... I like the walls

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Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge ... Crossing about 50 feet above the churning ocean between the land and the island


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Pic from the island (Scotland behind)... ... Dunluce Castle Ruins-- right on the roadside along the coastal route!


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The Beach House in Port Stewart on the north coast of Ireland ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Brrrrrrr!


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The National Parks Rangers vehicles :-) ... I like the coloring of sunsets. ... Where the River Bann meets the ocean


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Giant's Causeway: a geological anomaly, caused by volcanic action rapidly cooled by the North Sea, where all the rocks are hexagonal in shape and varying in size. You'll see in further pictures, the entire coast is made up of this type of rock, it just hasn't been exposed/ eroded yet... There is a local legend about the place (why it's called Giant's Causeway) is that there was an Irish giant named Finn McGoo who boasted that he was the biggest and toughest giant in the world. Well there was a giant over in Scotland (I forgot his name...) who heard about Finn McGoo's boasts and challenged him. (there is a similar but smaller version of the causeway across the straight in Scotland) They threw rocks at each other until a bridge (causeway) was formed between Scotland and Ireland. Then the Scottish giant came across. When Finn McGoo saw the size of the Scottish giant, he went running home to hide. His cunning wife told him to hide in the baby's crib. When the Scottish giant came to the house, McGoo's wife told him to be very quiet because her baby was sleeping, pointing to the crib where McGoo was snuggled in. When the Scottish giant saw the size of McGoo's "baby" he went screaming back to Scotland, tearing up the bridge as he went... and so it goes... :-)

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See the hexagon shape? Cool, eh? ... See how they go right up the cliffs? ...I'm an awesome photographer!


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There is a hiking path that goes along the middle of the coastal cliff so you can get a broad view of the causeway. Years ago, it was actually a longer trail, but landslides and rockslides have made it unstable and hard to maintain, so its closed except for right along the causeway. Well, the "trail closed" sign wasn't going to stop Alistair. So we hopped a fence and kept going. It was a beautiful hike and well worth the anxiety I felt for "breaking the law" -- we got to see a part of Ireland that nobody gets to see anymore. By the end of the trail, it was nothing more than a sheep path. We even chased some sheep along the trail toward the end of the hike. However, all traces of an established trail were completely erased, including the concrete steps that used to lead up to the top of the cliff... which meant that we had to do a little climbing to get back to the top. I was not exactly the happiest camper, because there was very little to hold onto besides grass. But Alistair was patient and calm and stayed behind me the entire time. It was quite an adventure, and actually it was a great precursor to some of our hiking in Israel, so it was really good warm-up hike. All in all, it was a pretty incredible part of the trip.

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The sheep path we were on...... ... ... . Chasing sheep! I snuck up on them. ... This is the view looking back from
... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... where we came, about 6 inlets along
... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... ~~~~ ... the coast (prime area for shipwrecks)


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This is what we had to climb up ... It took a bit of time to slow down my heart rate after that climb! Ok, better now.


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Alistair's Bakery! ... ... ... ... ... ... ~~ Naturally... I have a castle! ;-)

Well, I was going to include England in this post as well, but this is already very long, and I don't want to overwhelm you! I'll post England soon... We're officially moving into our apartment tonight, but we won't have internet until the 7th... so I'll have to wait until then.

What do you think? Like the format of this post? Easy to follow? I need your feedback! :-)