The Giants Causeway

The legend goes that Finn MacCool built the causeway over to Scotland to respond to a challenge, but found the place inhabited by the giant Benandonner, who turned out to be much larger than expected.  Returning home and with the aid of his wife, MacCool deceived the giant into believing that MacCool was much larger by pretending to be his own infant son.  Benandonner fled back to Scotland, destroying the causeway to prevent pursuit, so only remnants remain on the coast of Northern Ireland, near Bushmills.

    The causeway is actually a weathered ancient basaltic lavaflow that has split into thousands of hexagonal pillars, although many of the pillars are actually pentagonal, indicating that nature wasn’t paying close enough attention to quality control.  The tour took us there on a long day’s excursion in Northern Ireland, first to the causeway, then to Bushmills distillery, then to Dunluce castle.

The weather was blustery, and walking around on top of the pillars is an exercise in caution.  Some areas are dry, and some are wet, and the individual pillars are different levels varying by inches, so it’s very much a matter of planning your route as you proceed.  The visitor center is large and architecturally interesting.  The audiovisual presentation area has benches to sit on and big pillows on the floor for young kids to flop on, and of course there’s a tea room café and gift shop.  I was rather intrigued by some history books, but the currency in Northern Ireland is sterling, not Euros, which was what I had in my wallet.  Besides, I can get that book on our Kindle for about six bucks.

In one area you are walking on top of the pillars.

  
In another, you are walking beside the pillars.

  
We gave our camera to Bronagh to snap our picture, and she proved herself equal to her husband in photobombing.