Antrim Coast and Carrickfergus Castle

We drove down the coast from Ballycastle, through Cushendun and Larne to Carrickfergus. It is a very beautiful coastline with views across to The Mull of Kintyre (Scotland) with England on the horizon. Our little Ford Fiesta is a bit small and buzzy after the Peugeot that we rather liked.



Carrickfergus has one of the largest and best preserved castles in all of UK. It protects the 'Belfast Lough', the inlet leading to Belfast, where the 'Titanic' was built. And, there's the song 'I wish I was in Carrickfergus'. Hayley does a nice rendition, but here is Charlotte Church.



The Keep was built by John de Courcy about 1177. It is about 30m high and the walls are between 3 and 5m thick. Here his pageboy and I are holding his horse's bridle.



The Keep included this banquet room.



In the early 13th Century the Middle Ward was built including 4 towers for archers to protect against invaders.



More modifications were made between 1225 and 1250 and the cannons used in the 17th Century.

There have been several invasions, sieges, successful and unsuccessful attacks on the castle over the years. The French succeeded in taking it in 1760.



The town didn't impress us, except for this mural!

All the days we have been here in our cottage on Drones Road near Armoy we have not been able to put 'go home' into the GPS and actually get there. Two of the 4 roads to the North of Armoy are closed for 6 weeks for water-main construction, and for 2 days now the police have closed Drones Road due to a security scare just a couple of miles from us, necessitating a diversion through country lanes to bypass the roadblock. We see a lot of Union Jacks and St George flags flying in the local towns and they all seem to have an Orange hall. Doug has not been able to use his Irish yet, it seems the Catholic schools teach it but the Protestant schools don't. After 400 years of English influence here, they are a long way from finding a future together.

Bushmills Distillery & Dunluce Castle

The rain had to arrive after such a good run of fine weather, so the morning was taken up with washing clothes & reading.



Then off to Old Bushmills Distillery to see where the the famous "Uisce Beatha" or "Water of Life" is made. A small sample followed an interesting tour.

We saw our first graffiti in Northern Ireland on a road sign ' Who's ur Da?'




The clouds had mostly lifted so we took the coast road to Portrush and a view of Dunluce Castle ruins, that dates from about 1641.

Sightseeing, Lisnagunagh and Bushmills

Off we went on a sunny day to see what we might happen upon. First up was BallyCastle, a pretty town with a harbour and a surf beach, looking out to Rathlin Island and Scotland in the distance.




Then along the coast to Kinbane Castle ruins, dating from 1546 built in a nearly inaccessible location between steep cliffs and a rocky island. The sign at the top said 'You are recommended to go no further', so down the path we went, of course. You can see they have some concern about falling rocks! There is also the ruins of a forge or foundry with some rusting machinery.



Next stop was the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge, managed by the National Trust, so free entry for us.This bridge has been erected each year by the locals for 340 years, giving access to swarms of salmon off the point. 8 people at once can cross on it.I really didn't want to go over - I didn't look down, and tried not to think about it as it bobbed and swayed.



Then further on to Lisnagunagh, armed with this old photo that had turned up in Alexander family archives. First we checked the churchyard gravestones, and found a couple of possible connections, then we walked into the village to take this photo, which is close to where the original was taken.



The old bridge over the stream has been turned into a tarmac road and culvert, some new houses obscure the older houses and the trees cover the old house with the stone walls.



The local was open and it seemed about time for a Guinness/peppermint tea , so in we went, and on the wall was this photo! The owner couldn't believe that I had the very same one! It seems it was an old postcard. The village has been is downgraded to a hamlet these days as the Post Office and store have gone.

To Northern Ireland

We left our cottage at Bridford, after saying goodbye to Mary and David and Fudge. We handed back our Europcar Peugeot which had used so little fuel. We waited hours for our flight at 2pm, were robbed over 20 pounds by Flybe for our 2kg overweight luggage and occupied ourselves watching the planes come and go.




The flight, a Dash-8 Q400 like this, was uneventful and the rental car man was waiting for us at Belfast City Airport. We headed out and found Ballymoney for some shopping essentials, then travelled on to our Little Pig's House at Armoy. Here is their website.





It is another re-fitted stone cottage, very nicely done.

Salcombe on the South Coast of Devon

We decided to visit Salcombe on the South Coast and check out the walk on the cliffs managed by the National Trust.



Salcombe is a pretty seaside town. The tide was out and due to spring tides of 5.5 metres, it was a long way out.



The 'Man Creche' seemed a good idea of the Victoria Inn but the husband might not be too good at navigating narrow country lanes when the shopping was done!





Our walk on the clifftops was very interesting with great views and interesting butterflies around us. Doug has not managed to catch any notable birdlife.



On the way home we pulled in to Kingsbridge for our choices of a cup of green tea or a pint of the local Otter Ale and a look around town. In the hour we were there the tide came in!

This was our last day out in Devon & Cornwall, off to Belfast tomorrow. It has been a most interesting two weeks and our Stone Dairy cottage has been excellent.

Okehampton

We wanted to have a look at Finchs' Foundry, a National Trust property and the only working waterwheel forge in the UK. It's not a foundry at all, as the man explained, it is a forge that works wrought iron into tools such as shovels, scythes and farm implements. A few men could produce 400 tools a day once the waterwheel machinery was installed. One waterwheel runs a fan for the fire, 4 boys were previously employed keeping the fire supplied with air. The big hammer bangs down about 5 times per second.



Part of the museum at the foundry explained about the connection to Tom Pearse's Old Grey Mare, 'Uncle Tom Cobley and All'. So many hopped on the horse that it 'took sick and died'. Its ghost still appears, with her rattling bones, they say.



While at Okehampton we had a look around town and visited the ruined Okehampton Castle. It dates from 1192 and would have been a huge building in its day. 1000 years of technology was apparent!