Portrush via Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge & Duniuce Castle

Sunday, 1 September 2019

Barbra leaves us today :(   Her bus leaves at 7 AM, so we left the apartment at 6:30 AM to walk with her to the station.  We watched her get on the bus and Tim and I walked back to the apartment.  We were still tired, so we went back to bed.  We finally woke up after 9 AM and started moving.  We were packed and ready to go just before 11 AM.  

Our first stop today is Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.  I know that Tim won't feel too comfortable crossing the bridge, but we have gone over a much longer rope bridge in Austria, that I don't think this one will be to hard for him.

We arrived around 12:30 PM and bought our bridge ticket.   We then walked about 1 kilometer with amazing views.

We were stopped from crossing the rope bridge when we were about 5 people back.  They are now allowing the people on the other side to cross over, so we have to wait our turn. We watched others walking over the bridge and saw some people looking pretty scared.  This just had Tim think about it more and more.

It was finally our turn.  By the way, the bridge is 66 feet long and about 100 feet above the water.  Here is Tim taking it very easy over the bridge.

Slow and easy

Here are a couple of photos from the small island the bridge crosses to.

And finally, we have to cross back over.  I took the camera and got a shot of Tim.  No smile, just concentration.

Because I knew that Tim wasn't looking down, I took a photo for him to see what it looks like.

Looking down from the bridge

On the climb back up, we got to experience more excellent views.

The distant point on the top right of the photo is Scotland.

The next stop is Dunluce Castle.  Rick Steves said that the setting of the castle is incredible, but there wasn't much to see inside.  So, we went and checked it out, but didn't pay the admission to walk around it.

As we were walking back to our car Tim noticed planes flying around.  After a quick internet search, I found that there was an airshow in our overnight town of Portrush.  Tim is now quite happy, so we get in the car and drive to our AirBnB in Portrush, just a 10 minute drive away.  We parked at the AirBnB and didn't even go inside.  We quickly walked to town and arrived at the airshow in time to catch a parachute team, followed by a helicopter demo, followed by an OV-10 demo.  Unfortunately we missed most of the good stuff, but at least we got a taste.

Static display of lifesize model of Spitfire.

OV-10

Very nice setting for an airshow

It was now 4 PM and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we walked to a takeout place where Tim had his first shawarma of the trip and I had my first curry.  We headed to the AirBnB stopping at a convenience store for some breakfast items.  We unloaded the car and ate dinner.  It was delicious.  We spent the rest of the evening chilling on the couch and watching TV and I catch up on the blog.

Tomorrow we have a hike in an area called Giant's Causeway.  It is supposed to be incredible.  So, until then...