Day no 2. Cushendall to Ballymoney

We woke to the sound of rain in the campsite, but the weather soon improved after a fairly leisurely breakfast. We backtracked down the road for a couple of miles then headed inland to Glenarrif forest park. We and had a nice walk there down a gorge and waterfall walk. 



There were some pretty impressive waterfalls and the wooden walkways had clearly taken a fair bit of time and money to out in place. I felt a little sold short however as the walking book I had purchased many years ago likened Glenarrif to a Swiss valley bit I failed totally to see the resemblance.... 








Maybe I was expecting to round a corner and see a Matterhorn shaped mountain or the like. Never the less, the walk was enjoyable and perfect for the boys with steep downhill wooden walkways, some waterfalls to looks at, some stones to throw in the river and a fine picnic in the sun once we were back at the van. Logan was particularly cool when one of the biggest bees we have ever seen landed on his plate and all he said was "bee mummy" lol. 



After lunch we carried on up the Antrim Coastal route, through a very busy Ballycastle. There was a cycle event on so the whole journey was spent overtaking cyclist doing either 35, 85 or 115 mile road cycle race-not that they were really racing but its hard on winding roads to overtake the wee peletons in the motorhome. We were in no rush however.. We passed the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge Dunseverick Castle (I may have annoyed Joyce a little here, she likes castles), and Giants Causeway without stopping as the were full of bus tours, Saturday is probably not the best day to travel this bit of coastline, also they aren't exactly cheap to go and visit. We will visit Giants Causeway one day, maybe during the quieter season...... I can't imagine its any more impressive than Fingals Cave on Staffa near Mull which we have visited....they were probably formed at the same time and connected also, but a boat trip to Staffa is hard to beat, a busy, expensive Giants Causeway can wait. We did take a detour inland here as I really wanted to visit Ballymoney. There is a memorial garden there to Joey and Robert Dunlop the famous Irish motorbike racers who were sadly both killed in racing accidents. Joey was killed in 2000 in Estonia when he crashed during a wet race and hit a tree, Robert his brother was killed during an Irish road race in 2008 when the back wheel on his bike collapsed, sadly another of the family William was recently killed at another Irish motorcycle race event...its a tragic story, as they all died doing what they loved.

The memorial garden is very nicely done and shall stick in my mind for a long time. 


By now we were short on time and had to find somewhere to park for the night, a quick google search had us in the Drumagehils campsite at Balnamore not far from Ballymoney. It was fine, plenty space for the boys to run around, a wee swing park. Tea, beers, scrabble (I lost), bed......Zzzzzz.

Comments

  1. Kenny AlexanderSeptember 12, 2018 at 12:51 PM

    You lost at scrabble with all those Z's at the end 😂 I didn't know about William Dunlop 😳 Joeys nephew who went out racing the day after his fathers funeral?!

    ReplyDelete

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