After spending some time in the city, it was time to head to the beautiful natural northern coast of Northern Ireland.  I struggled to figure out exactly how I wanted to tackle the coast with public transit options and how much i wanted to hike.  I decided to take a bus to Ballycastle, spend the night then take a bus about halfway along the coast and then walk the rest.  I arrived in Ballycastle in the early afternoon and the hostel was a small with only two rooms.  Around the same time I was checking in, mother and her young son were checking in at the same time and had the room next to mine.  It took a little while for him to warm up to me, but after a little bit of shyness, he warmed up and introduced himself as Christopher.  After a little bit of timid back and forth it was full on question assault.  He seemed like a pretty smart cookie, so we chatted for some time until his mother (Lindsey) said they had to go.  Her sister was staying in these wigwam cabins about an hour West and they were going to go hang out for a bit.  Since Christopher and I were getting along so well, she invited me along.

We headed out to the wig wams but on the way stopped at the bush mills distillery for a look see.  It was closed, but I got a photo op to say I was there.

We arrived at the wig wams and they were actually pretty cool.  I would say high level glamping with a bathroom and a kitchen in each one.

The kids all played and the adults (I was an adult in this instance) had a wonderful time chatting and drinking some wine.  Eventually we were summoned to the games room for a game of pool.  Christopher and I made a good team.  Eventually it was time to head back to the hostel for bed.

In the morning Lindsay was very generous to offer to drive me about halfway along the coast (I was initially planning on taking the bus or walking the whole way) and showed me the most beautiful part of the walk and dropped me off at the beginning of that.  We also stopped at a small harbor that was pretty cool to check out.  This area of the coast was used extensively to film Game of Thrones and so the local community is very proud of this and there are signs everywhere.

The main attraction for the day was the Devil’s causeway which most people have probably seen.  I also got the tip that you really don’t have to pay to visit as the payment is for the visitor centre which is strategically placed over top of the road that you need to walk down to get to the rock formations.  I walked down on my own and then spent a while taking a lot of photos.  There were tons of people, but you could still manage to get some photos without people in them.

After visiting the devil’s causeway area, I continued along the coast for about 20km until I arrived in Portrush which is where I would spend the next night.  Turns out that Christopher and Lindsay were headed there as well as there is an amusements centre there which was the plan for their day.  I walked into town and ended up meeting up with them again for the evening.

The views along the walk were beautiful and I very much enjoyed my walk.

When I got to Berry’s amusements, Christopher and I rode the log ride together!

I checked into my hostel and promised to meet up for an evening beer later in the evening.

The next morning happened to be a Saturday which meant there was the potential for a park run and sure enough portrush has one of the one ones that takes place on sand.  I got up in the morning and headed to the beach for my second park run!

There was a pretty good turnout.

I haven’t done many 5km races and especially none on sand, but this one ended up being pretty good.

I ended up coming 10th place and was a sub 20 minute 5km for me which I know i can do better in the future, but was my fastest 5km to this point. 19:20 on sand was my time.

After getting all showered and checking out of my hostel, I wandered portrush for a bit, but then ended up stumbling across one of the 4 times per year the local brewery opens it’s doors for the public.  They are a cooperatively owned brewery, so 4 times per year they have a board meeting and then open up for a taproom after.  I was very fortunate to be in town on one of these days and ended up having a great time.  All of the people that were there loved beer and all of them were stakeholders in the brewery.  We chatted beer, drank beer and then the brewmaster walked me around the brewery.

I sampled a bunch of their offerings which were generally delicious!  Brewery was called Lacada and their beers are available throughout northern Ireland.

After a few samples, I headed back into town and was fortunate to come across a peaceful march through town of one of the political groups that like to make sure people know they exist.  This march was by a protestant group which are on the side that thinks Ireland should be part of the UK.  This is another example of the political situation happening on the island of Ireland that I did not know existed before I arrived, but continued to see evidence of throughout my trip.

I then met back up with Christopher and Lindsay and Christopher had drawn Mom I’m OK in the sand and wanted to show me.  I took a picture and sent it to my mom!

Since I was moving on to the next destination, I had my bigger bag with me and Christopher wanted to carry it.  It’s not that big compared to a lot of the other travelers I have seen but it is still decently heavy so seeing him walk with the bag on was pretty funny.

My next destination was Derry/Londonderry (Depends on who you are talking to if it is Derry or London Derry, Derry is Catholic and London Derry is protestant)  Lindsay offered to give me a ride down as it wasn’t that far out of the way and it would give us a chance to stop at the beach along the way.

Christopher had his bike in the back of the car as well as a kite, so we went to the beach and had a grand time playing in the water, riding his bike and flying the kite!

Christopher kept riding his bike into the shallow water and both his mom and I were just waiting until a wave would take him by surprise and get him all wet.  It did not take long and before we knew it, both of us were pretty wet.

After a pretty fun beach time, we headed off to Derry/Londonderry and by this time it was getting a bit later and so Lindsay and Christopher looked to see if they could stay one more night but everything in Derry was booked and so they had to go home.  It was a fun few days hanging out and it was a sad goodbye, but it ended up not being a final goodbye, but that is a story for another day.

I checked into my hostel and immediately met a crew of people who were planning to go out that night and so I did a quick change into my fancy shirt and then tried to find an off license.  We ended up getting a pretty good crew together and ended up at a bar that had a decent dance floor.  Oh and the cheapest beer they sold at the off license was Molson Canadian (brewed in Burton on Trent) and only containing 4.2% alcohol which was more in line with the typical UK strength of beer.

I danced into the wee hours of the morning until the music stopped and it was time to go home.

The next morning I had a bit of a late start to the day due to the late night, but got up in decent spirits and managed to go on a nice 21km run of the city, along the old walls, along the river and past some of the cool graffiti. I am not going to provide the history and details of “The troubles” but you can read about it here if you would like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles_in_Derry

I headed back to the hostel for a rest, shower and recovery then headed across the river to the one brewery in town called walled city.

I decided to treat myself to a nice meal that day and it was indeed very good.

The actual brewery here was a little small and more amaterurish than expected for an establishment of that size, but the beer was decent so wasn’t a problem.

That evening, there weren’t too many people around so I just chilled in the hostel with a few beers.

On the first night I met these two Brazilian guys who were working and living in Dublin and were just in town for the weekend.  They were heading to Gallway for a few hours and offered to give me a ride!  So we set off for Ireland in the morning!