The Adventures of the Restless: North West Ireland

I finally have internet again!!! It's only been a couple days, but we haven't had free wifi where we have been staying - so I'll keep the next couple updates short. We have a plane to catch in the morning to Edinburgh, and it's 11:00pm here...

Anyway, 09/21 was a day that we are the go, go, go. See, we started our trip and Dublin, and planned out things we wanted to see in a full loop around Ireland - meaning that each day, we would be driving to make progress on seeing the entire coast line of Ireland. Today, we had to get up early and set out for Dunluce Castle and Mermaid Cave in order to get enough time to make our way to Falconeering. (We later learned that the drive to the School of Faconeering in Ashford Castle was 5 hours away, and did not make our appointment in time). However, we stumbled upon the old Bushmills Distillery - the oldest distillery in the world. Can anyone say whiskey? A couple photos below :)

Bushmills Distillery:

Matt and Charlie

Angie with a cute little Irish cat

Barrels o'Boos

Dunluce castle was the first castle in Ireland that we were actually able to stop at and revel in it's glory. I've posted some photos below. The castle was mainly intact, with a lot of repair work and visible decay - so to speak. But it was a sight standing mighty on the cliffs edge, overlooking the shores. It is easy to see why the castle would have been hard to take over looking at the towers, weak points, and vantage points.

Dunluce Castle: just a couple photos- time constraint here

Beautiful

Angie, Matt, Me, and Charlie

"let me see you growl" Angie said, and everyone walking by laughed :)

Don't worry, we did get up close and personal, but - in a hurry

Mermaid Cave was something from photos we saw on Ireland. It was supposedly a cave of legend in which men would be pulled into the sea by mermaids - near a castle. See the crossroads in the path of the first image of the castle I posted, and yellow sign? That yellow sign warns not to go into the cave. We didn't know before we got the Dunluce, but Mermaid Cave was directly below the castle.

Okay, I know it said not to go in.... But it was an awesome photo op we couldn't pass up. Honestly, I was really hesitant about breaking the rules, but the rest of the group was at the bottom already... so I took the opportunity as well.

Mermaid Cave:

Charlie and I near the entrance to the cave

Charlie at the bottom, watching the waves crash

Love me some silhouette photos! Angie and Matt

Matt and Charlie

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous

Today was also a day of stumbles. By some dumb-luck, we stumbled upon several abandoned churches/abbeys by making some wrong turns - and ended up seeing some the coolest history that just cannot be seen in the US. This abbey we found (later pictures, not the top ones) have graves in it that date back to 1726 (from what I remember the date being), and that was just on the headstone that was readable - who knows how far back they really went. One thing about Ireland, there are so many tower, abbey, and other ruins all over the place here - it is really a beautiful site.

Abandoned Abbey: Not the top one. Not nearly as many as I wanted to post, but I'll put the rest on Facebook later.