Last day – the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede. Very very high, originally with a hand-rope on one side only for shepherds to take their sheep across to (yes) Sheep Island. Fine if you don’t look down, and Daniel doesn’t jump up and down and make the whole thing wobble.
Ferries should be taken whenever possible, and possibly one of the best ferries ever goes from Ballycastle to Rathlin – an L-shaped island with a bird sanctuary at one end, and a fish and chip shop in the town.
The (fast) ferry out was the foot-passenger-only catamaran, 25 minutes off bucketing about on pretty big seas. The local bus (the Puffin Express) took us to the eastern end, with a fine commentary from the every large lady driver – ‘on the right is the site of a stone-age axe factory’ – and the bird place where we saw very very small puffins a long way away A the bottom of a cliff through binoculars kindly provided by enthusiastic RSPB people.
Very fine fish and chips after walking back to the town, and then the slow ferry back. No health and safety concerns here – room for maybe two-and-a-half cars, in our case one BT van, not strapped down. Passengers sat on rows of plastic chairs around the edge, in sets of eight or so with pieces of PVC piping shoved up pairs of legs to fix them together. The sea had got rougher and after a short while one of the crew picked up a row of chairs and put it under the roll-on ramp, whereupon a couple (Essex tan and bling) sat and ate fish and chips and drank a quart of milk while the very drunken Irish pensioner we’d encountered earlier on the island propped himself against the rail.
No comments yet.