Londonderry to Ballygally
From World Tour 2008 in Derry, United Kingdom on Oct 11 '08
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Our first stop today was the Belleek Pottery Centre. This factory is famous for its unique basket weave design pieces. A number of the ladies on the tour splurged and bought items in the showroom but I resisted the urge - how would it ever get home in one piece. One guy said that the postage home to the US for a $20 pound item that they were looking at was $70 pound!!
After this we made our way to Londonderry. Here we stopped at the Guild hall-which actually looks like a church but infact houses the local council.
Land of Giants
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We went on a short bus ride around the city walls with our local guide Roan, who gave an unbiased view to the IRA vs Britain/ Catholic vs Protestant riots. Here we saw the many murals that now exist in the city as memorials to those people who died in the IRA riots. We exited the bus and walked the city walls, passing the tall steel fences topped with barbed wire, that used to separate the catholics and protestants during the marches.
He told us how the guy who bombed the Guild hall, when he finished his 7yr prison term, ran for council and is now a sitting member! Also, the only thing that survived the bombing inside the hall was a spanish marble statue of Queen Victoria - how ironic.
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Over 99% of the people of Northern Ireland want to be part of the UK, but a large number of the local people prefer to live in the Republic of Ireland - juts a couple of kilometers away- because everything is so much cheaper there. It's a catch 22 situation though, as they still want to use the health care and schooling provided for in Northern Ireland, as these services are much better or more easily accessible. To do this, they have to be living in the province, so to enable them to have their cake and eat it too, they use postal addresses of friends and family to fake their residential address. He also said that people who get to the top of their field in sports can choose to represent either Ireland or the UK in the olympics - wierd.
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After a quick lunch, the bus headed on the Ballygally and the Giants Causeway. Here, a 10 minute walk down to the bay coastline brings us to a volcanic formation. Millions of years ago, lava flowed down to the ocean, and when it cooled, broke into hexagonal columns. We could walk around some of the approximately 37000 columns that still exist, many eroded by the sea. Some people climbed up to the top of some of the formations, which formed a honeycomb type structure. After walking back up the hillside (pant-pant-pant), we then decided to walk up along the cliff-top to see the columns from a high hill-top view.
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From here we had a further bus ride of about 2hours to our destination of Ballycastle for the evening. During the ride we hugged the coastline and passed many bays with spectacular ocean views. With the weather remaining clear today we were able to catch a glimpse of the Mull of Kintyre land mass out in the ocean. We arrived just after 6pm and enjoyed a tour included dinner that evening at the hotel. Tonight I had an early night as there was laundry to be done!
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