Leon Turnbull Photography

On Day 5 of our trip, we flew to Belfast in the morning and drove to Portrush, where we would be staying the next few days. I was not particularly impressed with Portrush. It is like a mini San Francisco, and our lodge was right in the middle of it. I do not really want to spend my  vacation in San Francisco. The traffic was a mess and there were far too many people. It was not very relaxing. Well, it is not like we would be spending too much time at the lodge. We had many sights to see.

There is so much to see in Scotland and Ireland, we only saw a small tiny drop in the bucket there. We only had 8 days in total for the three countries (Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland). My wife is the one that really wanted to see Ireland. It has been on her bucket list forever. When her group decided to do this Europe trip, Ireland was not on the list. She was upset. How can she go all the way over there, and not see Ireland. She decided to extend the Europe vacation, and go to Ireland separately. This is why I went. I do not like tour groups, and I was not going to go to France and England in a big group to see things I do not want to see. I want to do my own thing (waterfalls is a big part of that, of course). So when she decided to go to Ireland separately, I said heck yes. We can spend time there by ourselves, doing the things we want to do and seeing the things we want to see (waterfalls is a big part of that, of course!). I would go over a bit earlier, so I can see Scotland as well, which was another country I really wanted to see. So that is what we did, and it was awesome.

We checked into our Air bnb lodge in downtown San Francisco, I mean Portrush. The lock on the door would not work. We could not figure it out whatsoever. Oh great. Now we would not be able to leave our stuff in the lodge while we were out and about. We had to call the owner (a $15 phone call), and he told us how to lock the door very simply. This may have been pretty obvious to Irish people, but to Americans, it is very un-intuitive how to lock the doors there. Why could they just not say how to do this in the instructions? It sure could have saved us that darn expensive phone call.

In the afternoon, we visited the Giants Causeway, Fair Head, Dunluce Castle, Kinbane Castle, Dunseverick Castle, and Dunseverick Falls. The Giants Causeway is a big huge tourist scam. It was apparently featured in one of the Harry Potter movies. We were told, thankfully, not to pay the huge entry fee, so we only had to pay 8 pounds for parking. It was a very busy place, and a busy walk down to it. Admittedly, it is a very interesting feature. We could not figure out if it was man made or natural, it looks like it could be either. Legend says it was built by the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, as a crossing to confront his Scottish rival. In fact, however, it is a natural volcanic formation. They have a bunch of attendants there, situated at various places, telling you not to climb here or there. It is a bit ridiculous, but if you fell you could be seriously hurt. There was just way too many people there for my liking.

After this we visited some castles in the area. Kinbane Castle was our favorite, but apparently if you are familiar with Game of Thrones, then you know about Dunluce Castle. I do not know anything about Game of Thrones. What the heck is that? All I know about is the Game of Falls, and I know that Dunseverick Falls (pictured here) is a very pretty little waterfall, cascading into the ocean. We were here at sunset, and it was a gorgeous spot, with beautiful sunset lighting. This place was indeed very relaxing. We had it all to ourselves.