Driving and Hiking - Slieve League and Giant's Causeway

Today was a day of moving! We woke up on our B&B to a bit of rain and fog, with the sun breaking through - that was pretty much the way that weather went the whole day. We took the extra drive to Slieve League, a hike and set of cliffs much less famous than the Cliffs of Moher, but twice as tall (600+ meters). It was a long hike and Bedsprings the car deserved the rest he got by the time we made it there - the last bits of road were rocky, pothole-filled, steep and not exactly the roads you would normally take a just-above-Smartcar rental car on. When we reached the end of the driving road we jumped out (next to a wildflower-surrounded waterfall) and continued on for our hour-long hike up. The hike was not necessarily easy, but beautiful the whole way. It's apparently a pilgrimage route for part of the year, where you are not supposed to wear shoes, to follow in the footsteps of St. Patrick.

We definitely wore shoes, and jackets, and stumbled up through the wind and rocks and sunshine to an incredible view. It's not nearly as sheer and straight down as the Cliffs of Moher, but just as impressive. Since I didn't get to post the photo of the Cliffs here's what we saw there...

And here's what we saw at Slieve League! I imagine you can see by the state of our faces, hair, jackets, etc. that there was also quite a difference in the wind strength. Luckily the very strong and gusty wind was blowing in from the ocean and so blew us inland rather than towards the cliff edge, but it was astonishly strong! 

Slieve League was a beautiful hike that we're very glad we did - it was a challenge, but one that was conquerable, with nice views on the way up and an incredible view in all directions at the top.

After we finished our hike, we continued with the long drive up towards northern Ireland. We had a quick stop in Londenderry/Derry for a break, which is a city with some cute things but not focused at all on tourists or things you can do in an hour on a Sunday. From there we continued on, arriving just in time for the sun setting at Giant's Causeway. While we didn't get the spectacular sunset we were hoping for, being there right as dark fell meant that almost no one else was there. We walked down to the site - without having to go through all the troubles of parking, etc. - and got to take our time and enjoy the great views with only a couple of other photographers in the area.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Ireland! We've already changed up our schedule quite a bit - we'll see what happens!