Well, after a really long yet amazingly informative and fun day yesterday Jer and I decided to hit the road north to visit Bushmills and Giant's Causeway. For those of you who do not know either, Bushmills is a little village near the north coast that is home to the Bushmills whiskey distillery of which we were planning on taking a tour. Giant's Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage site on the north coast that has really cool "staircase" rock formations believed to have been formed by volcanic activity many millions of years ago. This is a huge tourist stop for people visiting Northern Ireland so away we go!
Before hitting the road we decided to check out a cafe in the north side of the city called "Tojo's". It was listed in my Europe guidebook as being a great, cheap place to eat so we decided to hit there first. We got to the cafe in Smithfields Market not too long after it opened and had the place completely to ourselves. It's a really small cafe with two levels, a short and sweet menu (lots of sandwiches) and very friendly staff who cook all of the food right there in their open kitchen. Jer and I ordered a coffee and the Ulster Fry each and sat down to start the caffeine wake-up injection. Now, an Ulster Fry is very similar to the Full English breakfast, it's just the Northern Irish version. While we were drinking our coffees the delicious smell of our soon to arrive breakfast was wafting through the air and making us that much more anticipatory for the dish to come. When it arrived our plates were packed to the max of various foods including: eggs, soda bread, wheten bread (a really doughy but delicious pita shaped bread), sausage, fried tomato, friend mushrooms, and bacon. It went down almost as quickly as it arrived and we were feeling pretty solid to go for the day. Before leaving the cafe we grabbed a sandwich each to bring along with us, paid, and headed back south towards the train station.
After grabbing a ticket heading north to Coleraine, we waited for the train to arrive and hopped on. Now, this trip was both a blessing and a curse in a sense. On the good side we managed to snag a bunch of really good photos of the Irish countryside (beautiful!!) but on the bad side we hit about half a dozen electrical failures on the tracks and were delayed approximately an hour longer than the already hour and half long trip. Needless to say, we got into Coleraine an hour later than expected...meaning we missed the bus up to Bushmills (about 20 min north of Coleraine). The buses as well only run every couple of hours! Since we had this new found two hour layover to kill Jeremy and I decided to head into Coleraine to find a cafe to sit at and do this waiting after eating our delicious sandwiches from earlier.
We managed to find a local cafe called "Homemade Cafe", which is quite picturesque. It was just a small place with very friendly local service and a decent menu of local favourites. Considering we just ate, Jer and I split a pt of tea and read a bit of the local newspapers. Afterwards we walked around the town and then back to the Bus Station. Also, if you were told to picture what you think a "quaint Irish town would look like"....Coleraine is it.
After FINALLY getting on a bus we headed up to Bushmills. From the bus stop we had to walk another 20 minutes or so to get to the distillery...of which we finally made it! After all of that travel time we were worried we wouldn't make it to the last tour at 4pm...but we did! After spending a little time in the gift shop we started onto the tour. Honestly...it wasn't really as good as I had built it up to be in my head. The distillery itself is actually quite small and old. Our tour guide was a bit quiet and didn't seem to be enjoying himself (it was his sixth tour of the day) and the tour itself was really short. Maybe it was the intense amount of travel and time it took to get there that I was ready for some really mind-blowing experience, who knows. On a funny note, when we entered the bottling plant they weren't even bottling Bushmills! It was Jameson!! Which was extremely confusing but apparently they bottle Jameson on site they just do not produce it. The Bushmills bottling line was shut down for the day so we missed that, really disappointing. However, after the bottling portion of the tour came the tasting portion! I tried a sample of Bushmill's Anniversary Blend and Jeremy tried their 12 year old single malt which is exclusively sold at the distillery. After enjoying those (feeling like we earned them after how long it took to get there) we left the distillery and grabbed a bus to travel the 5 min to the causeway.
The causeway itself was absolutely beautiful! We unfortunately didn't arrive in time for any of the tours happening so we just wandered into it by ourselves. The coves that you walk through make you feel so small (in a literal as well as existential sense), however it's the amazing rock formations that make it worth it. These rocks are all in shapes like stairs so you can literally walk all over them and there's some amazing picture opportunities. Photos can be seen on my Facebook page and you can get a glimpse of just how awe inspiring some of these views actually were. At a point we found a little nook in the rocks to just sit and enjoy the fresh sea air and calm serenity of the Irish Sea. I brought along a couple cans of beer as well which we cracked open and enjoyed. I never thought for a moment in my life up to this point that I'd ever find myself in a gigantic expansive cove overlooking the Irish Sea with a cold beer in hand and a best friend to enjoy it with. It was truly one of those moments that happen in life that get etched into the tapestry of your memory. Something I will always treasure as an experience during my time here.
Once we were finished at the causeway (and yes, I collected the two cans and disposed of them appropriately....no harm to the environment!) we walked back up and caught the last bus heading back towards Coleraine. Funny enough, we had missed all of the tours that happen for Giant's Causeway but our bus driver also works for the bus service that goes through the cove! Since she knew all of the stories about the causeway, and we were literally the only ones on the bus for the entire trip, we shared all of the information and different aspects of the cove with us! A great supplement to our already amazing experience. Combining this with the generosity of Jerry the day before, we've been having a great experience with the local Irish population who have all been helpful and friendly and full of amazing stories and information. Kudos Irish!!
After getting back to Coleraine we caught the train back to Belfast (with no electrical problems) and returned at approximately 9pm. Seeing as how we set out originally at 8am....we were quite tired. We stopped for some fish and chips to bring back to Jer's and settled in to watch a bit of t.v. and then crash for the night.
So far, two amazing days full of experiences and amazing sites! Tomorrow and Wednesday are going to be a lot more calm. Tomorrow Jer plays at an Irish music night at a local legend bar know as Madden's so we'll be hitting that in the evening. Wednesday there's a pub quiz thing at The Speakeasy but other than that nothing planned. We didn't manage to get tickets to the theatre for Wednesday but we'll figure out something to do!
Cheers and love to all!!!
Erik (and Jer)
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