The Giant's Causeway is possibly the top tourist destination in Northern Ireland, and was definitely the top attraction on our tour (which was actually called The Causeway Tour). It is located on the coast, just a few miles from Bushmills. Like Carrick-a-Rede, it is administered by the National Trust. At the time of our visit, it had a brand new Visitors' Centre, a state-of-the-art replacement for the previous visitors' centre, which had burned down in 2000. We chose not to visit the Visitors' Centre for a couple of reasons. First, it's on the expensive side - about $13 US per person (and we were used to US National Park visitors' centers, which tend to be free). Also, we had a fixed amount of time available to us before our bus was to head back to Belfast, and we wanted to spend the time exploring the Causeway.

The Causeway is about a half mile walk from the Visitors' Centre. There is a free shuttle bus with a stop behind the Visitors' Centre, but we elected to take the walk. The weather had improved somewhat since Carrick-a-Rede - it was still cloudy and occasionally sprinkly, but the wind and the rain had both diminished somewhat. Also, it appeared that the walk would be scenic, and we felt that we would enjoy it more on foot.

Before long we could see a rocky peninsula in the distance, jutting out from the shoreline, with people crawling all over it. As we got closer, we could see the rocks in more detail, and it became apparent that we were approaching the main attraction, the Giant's Causeway itself.


The Giant's Causeway is a consequence of volcanic activity that occurred in the region 50-60 million years ago. It seems there was a layer of molten basalt that contracted as it cooled, causing the fracturing of the basalt into columns with polygonal cross-sections. The most popular number of sides on the columns is six, but there are columns with anywhere from four to eight sides. The effect is striking, but not as unusual as one might think. There are examples of similar basalt columns all over the world. In the US, for example, the same type of structures can be found at Devils Postpile in California or at Devils Tower in Wyoming (not sure exactly what's demonic about them). Closer to Northern Ireland, similar columns can be found across the water on the Scottish Island of Staffa. The Staffa columns can be seen as supporting evidence for the story behind the name given to the formation, a story involving an Irish folk hero named Finn MacCool.

MacCool, besides having the best name ever, was an Irish giant (52 ft. 6 in. tall) about whom a number of stories are told. There are different versions of this particular story, but the main idea is that MacCool had challenged a Scottish giant named Benandonner, whom he'd heard of but never met, to a test of strength. Benandonner agreed to the challenge, so MacCool set to building a bridge from Ireland to Scotland so they could meet. On arriving in Scotland, MacCool was able to sneak a glance at Benandonner without being discovered, and was horrified to find that Benandonner was a much bigger giant than he was. This being the case, MacCool decided to skip the contest, and hastily retreated to Ireland, where he crawled into bed and hid. Eventually Benandonner discovered the completed bridge, and he used it to cross over to Ireland so he could find MacCool and sort out the strength thing. He found his way to MacCool's house, only to find MacCool's wife Oonagh. Oonagh pointed to the bed with the cowering MacCool and admonished Benandonner not to awaken the sleeping baby. Benandonner did the math and figured that the father of such a gigantic baby must be really enormous, so he high-tailed it back to Scotland, destroying the bridge behind him as he went.

This left the remains of the bridge to be marveled at by tourists such as us. We moved in for a closer look.


On arriving at the Causeway, we found that there were no restrictions as far as climbing around on the columns and posing for pictures. It also seemed that it would not be too difficult to hurt oneself pretty badly (especially in wet weather) if one were to behave stupidly or otherwise be less than careful. But it was also pretty clear that crawling around on the columns could be a lot of fun. And it was.










Looking back at the hillside from which the Causeway apparently emerged, we could see what looked like the tops of additional columns among the grass - maybe more waiting to be added to the Causeway as the hillside erodes.

Having had our fill of the Causeway, we were curious to see what was on the other side. We found a trail through a gap in the columns at the base of the Causeway (a gap we later found to be called the Giant's Gate) and walked through it, looking back to see what the Causeway looked like from this side.


Looking ahead, we could see that the trail followed the shore for awhile, and then rose up to follow the face of a cliff.


Philip and I followed the trail, heading for a tall column formation (called The Organ) which was embedded in the cliff. There was a nice view as the trail climbed the cliff.


Eventually we reached The Organ, where we discovered that the trail ended. Apparently the trail normally goes farther, but there had been a rockslide which made for dangerous conditions.


We returned through an increasing sprinkle to the Causeway, where we collected Nella and used the shuttle bus to return to the Visitors' Centre. We crossed to the parking area and found our tour bus. The rest of our fellow tourists also eventually returned, and we headed back toward Belfast.

The tour bus dropped us off back at our hotel, from which we walked south in search of dinner. We eventually found an Italian restaurant called Speranza, where we satisfied the hunger we'd accumulated during the day's exertions.

The following day, as already discussed, we returned to Titanic Belfast in the rain, and then we found some lunch. After this we got on a train and headed to our next destination. But rather than continue right away with the next stop on our itinerary, I'd like to include one more page for Belfast, to show some of the miscellaneous Belfast sights we'd seen during our stay there.