Day 2

Excellent breakfast to start us off.

Then proceeding through the wind, rain and hail to Bushmills for a look at the Giants Causeway. It became apparent to me that all the photos of the causeway I'd seen in the past used a clever camera angle to make the Stones seem larger than they are. Good to see though.

Stayed in Bushmills which must be one of most rundown places I've seen. The Sportsman pub offers "good fun" and "cold drinks" as its selling points. I'd have thought cold drinks was the minimum you expect from a pub so we decided not to test the fun.

Day one

Three of us set off at 10 from the palatial Paddys Palace in Belfast. 1 mile later we were stopped for a coffee break!

Exceptional gale force winds meant loads of trees down and VERY hard work cycling SW.

Eventually reached Lough Neagh where the waves were breaking. Stayed at the excellent Bay Cottage B&B.

Weather

Looks like Monday will be the most challenging weather - strong wind generally in our faces and rain - but longer term forecast looks reasonable although a little cold.

My main concern is strong winds (against us) which makes the distances much, much harder. Current forecast seems to imply this should be okay (apart from Monday).

Giant's Causeway

There is a small element of truth in the legend of Finn McCool, who is said to have built the causeway to fight a much larger giant in Scotland, in that the causeway was formed in the Scottish Midland Valley which extends to Northern Ireland. The Midland Valley developed some 400 million years ago as a consequence of the collision between two land masses containing the Northern and Southern fragments that formed the British Isles. About 60 million years ago, as America and Europe separated, several million years of basaltic magmatism covered the whole area; leaving the remnants seen today.

There is much speculation about the processes which formed these unusual basalt columns. They are often said to be hexagonal but in fact various polygonal shapes are present. Several papers have been published on the formation of such patterns. The formation of the columns is associated with the cooling process but only a very few flood basalts cool in this way. An interesting mystery.

However other natural structures sometimes cool in a similar fashion:

Ice flows in Arctic Canada.

Hostels at Tra na Rosann and Errigal

All,

First my apologies for misleading you over sheet sleeping bags. Re -reading the notes with the booking confirmation clarifies that it is ordinary sleeping bags which are banned - the YHA type sheet sleeping bags are OK. Otherwise one can hire sheets and pillows at 2 euros per night. This in any case only applies at Tra na Rosann as bed linen IS included in the price at Errigal.
The hostel at Errigal, which is miles from anywhere, offers a 2 course evening meal at 14 euros for groups and a 5 euro continental breakfast, if prebooked. Do you wish me to pursue this and/or make a booking. I dont know the definition of a group but would hope we would be acceptable.

Update 16th May:
Further to above, the Hostel Manager advises that a group is 15 to 20 strong so a party of 6 does not count. Its just not our day - see first comment.
There is, however, a shop next to the Hostel which sells a range of food sufficient to make an evening meal. Even so, we'd better have some emergency rations just in case.