Ireland - (Feb 16-23) - Day 5 - Giant's Causeway and The Dark Hedges

This day started well, we were off from the Riverside Marina quiet early after a nice shower and up to one of Kristine's main goals in Ireland - the Giant's Causeway.

The Giant's Causeway is located on the shoreline in northeast Ireland.  It  was formed as the tectonic plates separated Pangaea (the super continent) and the magma was forced to the surface, forming pillars of basalt.  The Irish have many myths and stories about the landscape, especially as it is such and impressive sight.  The stories say that the area was created by a Giant, Finn McCool (Fin Mac Cumhaill).  He was rivals with the giant Benandonner who lived across the water in Scotland.

Finn crossed the causeway to challenge Benandonner and then realised that the rival giant was much bigger than he, so he raced back and told his wife Oonagh what had happened.  When Benandonner stormed over to find Finn and accept the challenge, Oonagh hid Finn in his son (Oisin's) cot and covered him with blankets.  She told Benandonner that Finn was out herding cows and introduced him to her 'son' Oisin (who was really Finn in disguise).  When Benandonner saw how big the 'baby' was, he began to worry about the size of the father and ran back across the causeway, tearing it up as he crossed.  This explained why there were similar rock formation at the other end of the causeway on the isle of Staffa in Scotland.

The Giant's Causeway

The trip started at the visitor centre and we headed down to Portnaboe (Bay of the Cow).

Portnaboe

Portnaboe

The Bay of the Cow was named as farmers had previously grazed cattle on the lower slopes.

Waves and rocks in Portnaboe

Islands in the distance - finally a day without as much fog

Cliffs at Portnaboe

There is another reason Portnaboe is famous and that is for The Camel.  Myths say that Finn was too far from home and needed to get back in a hurry so he hailed a giant camel that raced him home and then settled down for a rest - it can be seen in the photo below - the large mound to the right is the body and hump and the smaller mount to the left is the head:

The Camel

In actual fact, the camel was created by cooling lava that formed a dyke of hard basalt that remained when the softer rock was worn away.

The mountain in the background of these shots is Runkerry Head as shown below:

Map of the area

Heading down we came to Port Ganny.  So named as the Gaelic word for sand is Gaineamh and this was the only section with sand.  Behind us was the 'Onion' rocks that are continually 'peeled' by erosion.

The Onion

Onion

and then we had out first view of the main part of the Causeway:

First view of Giant's Causeway with Port Ganny in the close distance

Giant's Causeway

In the picture above, I can point out a few landmarks:
Portnaboe is up the hill behind us and to the left.
The Onion is directly behind us on the hill face.
To our left (out of shot) are the Stookans (Haystacks)
Directly in front is Port Ganny.
In the distance the black rock with people standing on it is the Giant's Causeway.
The thin rocks in the far distance at the top of the cliff is Finn McCool's Chimneys.

Us in front of the Giant's Causeway

The Stookans

It's said that the top of the rightmost Stookan is Finn McCool's Granny turned to stone

Try as we might, we failed to see Granny on the stones, but the stories were pretty interesting.  The first is that Granny waited on the rocks for Finn whenever he went out and so she turned to stone waiting there for him.  The second tells of Finn falling in love with a Scottish woman and building the Causeway to her.  Granny didn't want him to marry a Scott so she summoned her magic and created a storm to wreck the Causeway.  Finn was undaunted and started again so Granny summoned a more severe storm.  Eventually he pushed through the storm finally making it to the other side, but he was so exhausted by fighting the waves and wind that he died in the arms of his beloved.  Granny was horrified by what she had done and turned to stone.  The final story tells that Granny nagged Finn too much as he built the Causeway, telling him where to place every stone, so he turned her to stone to shut her up.

On the rocks at the start of the Causeway

Listening intently to the audio guide

The stones of the Little Causeway

The Causeway

Basalt columns

Lounging around on the rocks

Family photo on the rocks

Next we passed through the Giant's Gates,  a gap that connects the Causeway with Port Noffler (meaning the Giant's Bay), which is said to be where Finn McCool makes his home.

Port Noffler

The coloured striations in the rocks that made up the cliffs was pretty amazing - created as different sediments were laid and the volcanic layers were made and broken up.

Giant's Gate

Wall of the Gate

Heading Through

Giant's Organ - the big columns on the cliffs of Port Noffler

Port Noffler

Following the story of Finn challenging the giant Benandonner, there is one of Finn's giant shoes discarded on the shore of Port Noffler, where it was lost when he ran back to Ireland.

Giant's Boot

Tom takes a rest on the boot

Cam comparing his shoe and the Giant's Boot

Relaxing on the Boot

Perched on the boot

Family on the Boot

(what you cant quite see in the picture above is Kristine had just fallen over, trying to rush back into the shot after setting the camera timer.  It turned out quite well though...)

The Giant's Organ on the cliff overlooking Port Noffler

Us at the Giant's Organ

The Giant's Chimneys

View back to the Causeway from under the Chimneys

Family photo (try 1)

and try 2

The red stone on the cliffs below the Chimneys

It had an interesting texture

After finishing at the Causeway, we headed out to the Dark Hedges - an avenue of beech trees near Armoy.  It was used for filming Game of Thrones - as the King's Road:

The King's Road in Game of Thrones (season 2 Episode 1)

Here's the sample of that scene (King's Road (S2E01)
Here's some of our shots:

After the Dark Hedges, we headed to Shane's Castle - also the location of several Game of Thrones scenes, but it was private property and closed for the off-season, so we continued on to our final stop - Carrickfergus.

Carrickfergus (Carraig Fhearghais - Meaning Fergus' Rock) is a castle in County Antrim in Northern Ireland.

It was built in 1177 by John de Courcy after he conquered Ulster (the districts of Northern Ireland).  He served there as King until he was ousted by Hugh de Lacy, a Norman adventurer in 1204.

Carrickfergus served as castle for both the English and the Irish in the war.  In 1210 King John capture the castle and it was later surrendered to French invaders in 1760.  It served as a garrison and ordnance storage in World War I and air-raid shelter in WW II.

We were able to camp in the carpark of the castle, and so we did so for two nights.

I'll include the pictures of Carrickfergus in the post for Day 7 (our last day waking at Carrickfergus) as we gathered pictures for the 3 days we were there.

Travel on Day 5

Distance driven - Day 5: 270km
Total Distance: 1435km