Our hotel last night was ok, if a bit tired. But with it being consistently full with tourist groups doing the Giants Causeway and Game of Thrones tours then I suppose there’s no incentive to modernise. Helena said goodbye to us today as she headed back to work and we headed out to Cushendall on what would be a shorter walking day.
We left Carnlough past the pretty harbour full of orange boats waiting to take tourists on boat tours. Carnlough’s harbour was built by the owners of the quarries west of the village, as was a freight tramway between the quarries and the harbour, including two bridges, both extent, for two parallel streets in the village. The Londonderry Arms Hotel was built in 1848 as a coaching inn by Frances Anne Vane Tempest, Marchioness of Londonderry, great-grandmother of Winston Churchill.
As we continued around the coast the scenery started to change, with higher hills (mountains?) on the landward side. The rock must be quite unstable as there were portions of it were covered in wire netting to protect the road from rockslides.
We then took a little detour to see the “Hidden Village of Galboly”. This was a bit of a climb up into the hills see a few abandoned houses! But the views of the surrounding hills made the trek well worth the effort, including a house used to store the fleeces from recent sheep shearing. On the way down we also spotted a wee baby rabbit (it was tiny) that bolted into the nearest hole when it saw us (we saw black wild rabbits yesterday as well).
We then walked through Glenarrif and Waterfoot with a view of Red Bay Castle and an impressive arch over the road that presumably was previously part of the castle. As we got to Cushendall there was a coffee van outside the lifeboat station so, as we were too early for check-in, we stopped for a coffee and a delicious slice of traybake (Malteser for Paul and Biscoff for me). The local Trent Class Lifeboat was looking ready for action moored in the harbour.
We checked in to our guesthouse, picked up a couple of towels and headed to Waterfoot beach for a swim. Well, swim is an exaggeration but at least we got fully submerged – it was extremely cold (10.6c) but weirdly invigorating.
We then took a short drive into Glenarrif Forest Park to to see the Ess-na-crub waterfall. It was pretty spectacular and the trail / path was well built which meant access was very straightforward. A shortish but interesting day, tomorrow we are heading over to Ballycastle.
Loving the daily updates. The scenery looks amazing and glad the weather has improved for you and Paul.
Little typo; you left Carnlough this morning and arrived at Cushendall this afternoon.
But looks like a great day nonetheless! 😊