A ride in the Paddy Wagon…

My dad and I decided that instead of renting a car, we would take a bus tour along the Antrim coastline.  We hadn’t quite wrapped our heads around the madness of Irish and U.K driving methods even though I own and have been driving a right hand drive van for 3 years. I still needed to warm up to the crazy speed limits and those oh so joyous roundabouts! We booked a comfy, large coach from the Belfast Hostel by phone and just about died laughing when the thing pulled up in front of the 5 of us tourists waiting by the curb. We thought the Dublin hop on hop off was cheezy! Roll on up…The Paddy Wagon! Big , green and a huge, scary Leprachaun painted on the side of the bus.                                                                                                           

Well needless to say we sat right up front for optimum views and close contact with our driver, being the crazy, hell bent tourists we are. Our day started out with nice weather again and off we went. Northern Irelands’ coast is rugged and cliff strewn. As we ambled along our driver gave us an amazing history about the area as well as the south of Ireland including a detailed account of Oliver Cromwell and his campaign against the Irish in the mid 17th century. Much mention was also made of the uprising of 1916, Michael Collins and the recent troubles in Belfast Derry and Omagh. Ireland , it seems, has always had conflict amongst the people and therefore reflects in all aspects of life here. Our first stop was on the outskirts of Balleycastle and the view of Ratlin Island.

The next stop is a rope bridge at Carrick-a-rede which although had spectacular views, the 8 pound fee to cross the thing was not within our limited budget…        

We enjoyed the walk and cooed with the cows in the field…