We began our journey middle of September’ 2007. I know this trip was many years back but then I was not a travel blogger and nothing better to illustrate our trip to the county of Antrim (Northern Ireland) with a photo blog of our journeys.

Day One

After leaving London Gatwick by flight in the early hours of the day to Belfast (Northern Ireland), we engaged in hiring a bus to central Belfast for a change to the North Eastern coast of Northern Ireland and the County of Antrim. With much excitement, my wife and I changed buses in Belfast to leave for Coleraine where we changed once again to connect the bus to our final destination of  Ballintoy. It took us over 5 hours for the whole journey to end and finally after reaching Ballintoy we set off looking for accommodations - as we had no reservations booked and were hoping to get somewhere - especially the youth hostels.

Ballintoy is a very small village and the census of 2001 states around 165 people were residing in this area. There were a few accommodations on the way and we were very lucky to check in one B&B (The Ballintoy House - Est 1737) which gave us a room for a bargain price of £20 per night (couple) including a full Irish breakfast. Now that was a bargain and the owner’s hospitality was out of this world.

Day Two

After a good morning breakfast we planned our journey to Bushmills village and the famous Old Bushmill’s distillery. Founded in 1608, it is the oldest licensed distillery in the world. We did not have a car so had to rely on public transport. Now with a small population in Ballintoy, the frequency of the local bus is very limited. This gave us good reasons to walk a fair distance and stopped the bus on our walk to take us to Bushmills village.

The Old Bushmills Distillery is famous for it production of Irish Whiskey (Irish spell Whiskey with the letter ‘e’ and Scottish spell without the ‘e’ as in ”Whisky”). Bushmills is famous for its ”Black Bush” a premier brand with various single malts ranging from 10, 12, 16 and 21 years.  The tour took us to the whole process of making the finest whiskey and at the final stage we had a test of the finest Bushmills. It is one of the major tourist attraction of the area.

We got back to our B&B and went out for dinner to the local pub just side of our accommodation (The Carrik-a-Rede). Nothing like having fresh fish from the local market with chips and a few pints of Guinness. I remember a local Irish band performing live in the pub and it was just outstanding. A lovely, friendly evening where the host community welcomed us with great smiles.

Day Three

The next day we set out to the Giant’s Causeway.  Normally the tourist route falls just near Bushmills village but we had other plan’s for our walk. We planned to walk from Ballintoy village to the Giant Causeway along the sea shore and away from the tourist route.

We had heard of a walking route along the sea shore made for rambler’s by the National Trust who own and manage the Giant’s Causeway. The Causeway was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986 and in 1987 a National Nature Reserve by the Department of Environment for Northern Ireland. It is an area of over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns and said to be from an ancient volcanic eruption. The top of the column’s form as stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear into the sea.

So we set off our walk -

The start of the journey took us to the Ballintoy fishing harbour. Thats where the fresh fish came for our last night evening meal. Once we crossed this we had a pathway which we thought took us to the beach.

After much wondering ……… still on a look out to find the National Trust footpath - we carried on walking.

Till we reached the beach and the rocky stones which were full of moss and very slippery to walk on. We were wrong - ended up with an area which was literally dead locked and slightly dangerous.

As a famous quote ”There is light at the end of every tunnel” I guess we were in luck because the dead end took us to a long stranded empty beach. This gave us hope that we should start looking out for the correct National Trust route. We knew that this was only possible if we get back to the mainland and look out for sign’s indicating to a footpath for walkers / ramblers.

Thanks to the houses in the distance, we were able to make our way back to the main road to the causeway. We had finally covered over 3 hours of unknown walking time / directions not  known and a good distance of over 5 miles. We carried on to the main road and came across some amazing views, a beautiful small church which was a perfect setting for someone wanting to get married side of this beach and a lonely house which was set as a perfect retirement place sans troubles and full of tranquility.

Slowly we started seeing our starting point getting further and further away from us as we approached the right path to the Giant’s Causeway. The views on the way were just outstanding.

Travelled a fair distance till we started seeing the landscape change. The stone structure leading to the Giant’s Causeway and the cliff’s featured looked very ancient and volcanic to the eye. As moving fast to our final destination, we started seeing tourists - thank god we were on the right path and a mere few kilometres left to reach the final viewing of the Giant’s Causeway.

A long walk of over 15 miles, where in some places not knowing where we were heading too whether we were on the right directions, we had accomplished our destination and here we were, finally to the historic Giant’s Causeway - Northern Ireland’s most famous tourist site.

When all was over, we set ourselves to the Causeway Hotel for a lovely meal. We got back to our B&B tired from the day’s adventure.  Our journey to Ballintoy was special, being one of the most picturesque part of Northern Ireland and county Antrim we learnt so much in such a little time spent there. The walks in the area were just stunning, perfect for landscape photographers, the people’s friendly and warm nature and so much to learn from while travelling just made this visit truly memorable.

The next day we set out to Carrik-a-Rede (rope bridge - which I will cover on our next photo blog post).