Day1 - Northern Ireland

The idea for day 1 was to drive the east cost of Northern Ireland and to visit a number of sites. Now being South Africans and used to driving long distances we kind off misjudged how close everything was and ended up having to turn around to get to our first outing spot...



These are pics of the drive



Above: I hate profile pictures of myself... I look like an alien with my big head. Thanks Karyn...



Driving...



Driving...



Moooo!



It was at this point when I checked the map and discovered that we where almost at the north coast...




I can't remember this towns name but we drove through it about 3 or 4 times trying to find these amazing waterfalls we had been told about.



A derelict house...



Some sheep... baaaaa!



And a quick pit stop










Even more sheep...



Another derelict castle/building/brewery/thing...



And then... finally we get to the Waterfall... I am sure the Liesbeek River has a bigger waterfall than this one?

Next we made our way to our next extravaganze... The Vanishing Lake... My only concern was that if it was in a vanishing phase... we may not find it at all!



We spotted some more sheep on our way...



Baaaaa! You will notice that even the Irish mark their sheep like golfers mark their golf balls.



And eventually we came upon the lake...



And if you can see beyond these two tall people you will notice that it is indeed there. I will have to go back and get a picture of it when it is not there, unless that means I am not there as well so then I won't have a picture to show.

The next adventure was to make sure we did not miss anything else lest we should fly past them at light speed which in Honey and on Irish roads is about 25MPH.



On the way I spotted a Golf course and Broekkies spotted the Bonamargy Friary. There was no chance that I was going to get a game of golf in so I made do with visiting the Friary...



It was made of stone... and had grave stones... so I was not soo disappointed. What really impressed me was that some of these guys dies in the late 1780s... Pretty cool when you think that the 1820 settlers had not even thought of putting their ox wagons into South Africa at that point in time.








The stones where perfectly weathered to climb and so I thought I would test the walls... this place had been here for hundreds of years and was still standing so a bit of extra bulk on the walls was not going to do them any damage. Also I heard a rumour that Friar Tuck at the time would monkey about the walls as well so in the spirit of the times I gave it a go, just so I could know what it was like to be a Friar.





I know someone who would have loved to have pulled this baby fern off the Friary wall and nurtured it at home... or killed it by forgetting to water it...



Now this is a brilliant picture, I would love to say that it was my creative eye that sought it out and snapped it up by lovingly getting my only pair of jeans dirty at the knees and water between my toes but I cant... as I will get into trouble. So nice pic Karyn.







This final picture is of the Viknor, a ship that sank off the coast of Ireland. What is interesting to note is that the sailors where buried where they where found so many of the dead are in grave sites all over Ireland and The West coast of England/Scotland.



After zooming to Giants causeway and not wanting to see it in the rain we decided to make camp. we made a braai read some books and I practiced some more Ukulele tunes...