Wednesday morning, we woke up to a steady rain. We were joined in the B&B’s breakfast parlor by a couple from Queensland, Australia, and spent some time comparing our experiences of Ireland. After breakfast, we packed the car and headed toward Bushmill’s Distillery. This distillery is the oldest one in Ireland, and gives hourly tours during the tourist season, and less frequent tours at other times of the year. We arrived just after a tour began, so we joined that one in the auditorium.
I enjoyed the tour, although I had a difficult time understanding the guide. I enjoyed seeing the way whiskey is made, and realizing how long the various types has to age before they are bottled. It also explains why good whiskey costs so much money: twelve years is a long time to store something in a cask. Afterward, we had the obligatory sample of whiskey in the bar. I found that I didn’t like the reserve (17 years) as much as the twelve year old I had tried the night before at the hotel restaurant. Or perhaps, I just don’t care for whiskey at 11:00 in the morning.
We decided to drive along the north coast road on our way to Glenarif. Despite it being wet, the road was easy to drive, and the views were spectactular. We stopped at one overlook where we could see the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, which is another attraction in County Antrim. I was just as happy that we didn’t go to the rope bridge itself, because I am fairly certain there is no way that I would have been willing to cross it.
As we drove into the glen country, we saw countryside that Jack said resembled northern Scotland: open highlands which seemed much more desolate than the country we had seen previously. We saw the waterfalls for which the region is famed: streaks of white against the dark cliffs. Taking our time, we arrived at the Visitor’s Center at the Glenariff Forest Park about 1:00. The Visitor’s Center wasn’t staffed during the week at this time of year, but the park itself was open. There was only one other car in the large car park.
Once again, we were lucky with the weather. As we parked, the rain stopped, and the cloud cover lightened. With umbrellas and cameras in hand, we set off to explore.
The car park was at the top of the hill, and we walked down the hillside along a well made trail which traversed the forested hillside in a series of switchbacks. The sound of the waterfalls was very loud, and the forest seemed almost as wet as the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Moss grew on everything, and seeps and springs were surrounded with vibrant growth.
When we got to the bottom of the trail, we crossed one river via a bridge, and started walking up the hill beside another river, along the Waterfall Walk. This river is in a narrow ravine, and narrow catwalks and bridges parallel and cross the river as one climbs. I am not sure that I could have handled it going down, but going up I only had one or two bad moments with my fear of heights. The water of the river was stained dark brown, we assumed from the tannin of the forest. We met a few people who were climbing down, but most of the time it felt as though we had the river, and the park itself, to ourselves.
By the time we had climbed back to the car park, we were both glad that we hadn’t planned to do any more walking that day: from Glenariff we were scheduled to drive to Dublin, where we were due at Jack’s cousin’s house at 7:30 pm.
As we left Glenariff, Jack informed me that Tom (his cousin) had expected Jack to call him to finalize arrangements after we got to Ireland. On our way south, we stopped at several places so Jack could call Tom. Unfortunately, due to the explosion of cell phone use in Ireland, public phones are vanishing, and even the ones that Jack tried in various pubs were not working. We finally gave up because the traffic was so bad when we got close to Dublin that we decided it was too risky to keep looking.
Somewhat to my astonishment, because the traffic near Dublin was even worse than the warnings we had read and heard, we pulled up outside of what we presumed was Tom’s house right at 7:30. We couldn’t read the house signs so Jack went knocking on doors. I had been driving while Jack navigated, and I was quite astonishingly grateful that we had managed to arrive intact. Fortunately, we had found the correct place, and Tom had room enough for us to park our car in his drive for the two nights we would be in Dublin. Tom’s house is about two miles south of the city center, but he rarely drives there, preferring to walk, or take buses or cabs.
I had met Tom years before when he was working in the United States, and recognized him right away. We also met Tom’s partner Sarah, and their dog, Prince. (Evidently, Sarah had to work for a while to convince Tom that they needed a dog. When they went to the rescue center, it was love at first sight between Tom and Prince. So Sarah still doesn’t have a dog.) We chatted for a long time, discussing our trip so far and what we wanted to see in Dublin the next day, and then the guys went out to get takeout Chinese and additional refreshments. I found that I liked Guinness in cans as much as I like it it on tap.
Written Monday 2006-11-20