A North Coast Holiday...

Last week we took a trip up to the North Coast of Northern Ireland, sort of a last hoorah before heading back to the US on Tuesday.  Some sweet friends of ours offered their holiday home to us for a few days in a quaint coastal town called Portstewart.  It was the perfect getaway for us and again reminded us how much we are going to miss this place.  One of our first blog posts from here was from the Giants Causeway on the North Coast, and while we didn't go back there specifically, it was somewhat fitting to visit the same area almost exactly a year later.

View of the cows out the window where we stayed

Our first stop Wednesday was one of Casey's dreams--to play a links course on the sea...The Old Course at Portstewart

Thursday was the only day we had rain on our trip (which is a miracle for here!) but we decided to go to a place called Mussenden Temple. 

Mussenden Temple sits right on the edge of a cliff by the sea. We found out that it actually was intended as a library on a family estate.

Casey standing down below

Here are the ruins of the estate:

 The rest of the day was pretty rainy, but we went to a place called Morelli's in Portstewart and enjoyed coffee and cheesecake by the sea.

Friday was our busiest day and we started by going to Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge.  Fishermen used to cross to a small island for salmon fishing using a rope bridge.  It's now a famous tourist attraction and a place with beautiful views.

View of one of the cliffs toward Ballintoy.

You can see the rope bridge crossing over to the island here.

Crossing the bridge was quite an experience!

Looking down to the chasm below

Casey took pictures of me going over the 2nd time...I squealed the first time

Almost across

 We traveled along the beautiful coastline, but our favorite photo was overlooking White Park Bay...

We then went to Portrush and walked along the beach by the white cliffs....

If you remember our Dunluce castle pictures from last fall, this is the view of the same castle from down below

Harbor at Portush

 We went back to Portrush late in the afternoon and enjoyed a really nice dinner and sunset...

Sorry for the photo overload!!

We really enjoyed our trip to the North Coast and now we're packing up to leave Northern Ireland.  We're sad to leave but glad we had this experience.

Looking forward to more adventures elsewhere...