Our hotel for the last couple of days was very nice and handily placed for the Giant’s Causeway. Weather forecast for today was clear through to lunchtime and then raining for the afternoon – no matter how fast we walk it looked like a soaking was due later on.
We left our hotel and walked into Bushmills to meet Graeme. The village owes its name to the River Bush and to a large watermill that was built there in the early 17th century and is best known as the location of the Old Bushmills Distillery (which we unfortunately didn’t get time to visit). As we crossed the River Bush on the way out of town we could see a fly fisherman trying his luck for either Salmon or Sea Trout. We had some nice views of Portballintrae on our way to Portrush along with yet another abandoned dwelling in a field.
As we walked along the coast road towards Portrush we had some great views looking down at the sea and then could see Dunluce Castle. In the 13th century, Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster, built the first castle at Dunluce and it was first documented to be in the hands of the McQuillan family in 1513. The McQuillans were the Lords of Route from the late 13th century until they were displaced by the MacDonnell clan after losing two major battles against them during the mid- and late-16th century. Later Dunluce Castle became the home of the chief of the Clan MacDonnell of Antrim and the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg from Scotland. We also spotted a probable sightseeing transport outside a local house.
The coastal walk into Portrush was great, cliffs, rock structures, glimpses of the sea through the rocks and then views of white rocks beach (where we went swimming yesterday).
A beautiful beach so rather than walk along the road we walked the beach instead all the way into Portrush. Swimming yesterday was invigorating but still very cold!.
We said goodbye to Graeme at Portrush as he went to catch a train to Coleraine and then onwards to Antrim. Just off Portrush harbour we could see the Sea Cloud Spirit (I used the Marine Traffic website to identify it). The ship is built as a three-mast full-rigged ship. A tallship is called a full-rigged ship when it has at least three masts with complete square rigging and can be easily recognised by the sails that are attached at right angles to the ship. Three mast ships have been built since the 15th century. At that time, they usually had square sails on the first two masts and a triangular lateen sail on the last mast – so they were not yet full ships. In addition to 4,100 m² of sail area the ship has two economical, environmentally friendly diesel electric motors. We then followed the coast road into Portstewart where coffee and a scone were gratefully consumed.
The walk into Coleraine was pretty much all on a path beside a busy road, a startling change from the last few days. We also had avoided the rain so far – finally it got us but it wasn’t heavy and probably didn’t last more than 10 minutes. We could see the River Bann at a few points, before we walked through Coleraine, crossed the Bann and finally got to our hotel. Only two more days of walking as we head to Limavady tomorrow.
