I mentioned in yesterday’s post that we arrived at our vacation rental to discover that our unit was up three flights of stairs. This is not an uncommon phenomenon for us in our travels, so I’ve gotten in the habit of packing light, which I accomplish by wearing clothing items multiple times, washing socks and undergarments in the bathroom sink. One three ounce bottle of laundry detergent and a bungee-cord laundry line take up much less space than an extra week’s worth of clothing. Last night I was due for some sink laundry, which can sometimes be tricky because you have to really ring the items out to get them to dry overnight. The trick is to lay the items out on a towel, then roll up the towel and squeeze. This almost always does the trick. This morning, I woke up and my socks and unmentionables were still damp (blame the humid, rainy weather), which was problematic because we needed to check out by 11 am at the latest. But luckily, the vacation rental amenities included a hair dryer.

So there I was, minding my own business, drying my last damp sock with the hairdryer when the smoke alarms starting blaring. It turns out I was standing directly under the smoke detector and the sock-drying operation had generated too much steam. Desperately, I fanned the smoke detector, hoping to undo my blunder. But alas, it was a centralized alarm system for the building of 8 vacation rental units, so there was no silencing it once it was set off without someone accessing the master panel behind a locked door. Fortunately, it seems that most of the units were unoccupied, so I really only inconvenienced one other couple and the owner of the rental units (and ourselves). Charles and I waited at the cafe across the street, enjoying tea and breakfast sandwiches while listening to the alarm beep and waiting for the owner to arrive and silence the alarm. Apparently, the smoke detectors are quite sensitive and prone to false alarms, usually caused by steam from the shower. Perhaps I was the first one to set it off with sock steam.

Once that debacle was sorted, we finished packing up, shlepped our luggage back down the three flights of stairs and to the rental car, and then headed over to the Bogside neighborhood to check out the murals. It had rained earlier in the morning, but by the time we started our tour the sun was warm and bright. We strolled through the residential Bogside neighborhood, watching locals out and about on their normal Wednesday morning routine, greeting their friends and neighbors as they passed on the sidewalk. The sun and the friendliness of the people around us created such a stark contrast with the tone of the murals and monuments memorializing such dark, heavy times in Derry’s history. It was this contrast that highlighted how the people of Derry have been able to remain hopeful even through “the troubles”, which was almost as moving as the murals themselves.

Once we completed the murals tour, we headed back to our car and got on the road to head toward our next destinations along the Antrim Coast. Our first stop was the ruins of Dunluce Castle, perched dramatically on the edge of the cliff. As legend would have it, “on a dark and stormy night” in 1639 half of the castle’s kitchen tumbled into the ocean (taking the kitchen servants with it). Historians debate the accuracy of this legend, but it still made for a very interesting and scenic stop.

The next stop was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, a reconstruction of an old fisherman’s rope bridge that connects the main island to the smaller Carrick-a-Rede island. We had been on the fence about this activity, since we both tend to prefer solid ground under foot, so paying $18 per person to temporarily experience the absence of solid ground didn’t sound like a great value proposition. But we had time to kill, as our pre-reserved timed tickets for the Giant’s Causeway weren’t for another couple of hours. So we bought our tickets for the rope bridge and set off on the 15 minute hike to get to the bridge. Crossing the bridge was a little nerve-wracking, especially when the wind picked up and the bridge started to sway a bit. But it’s not a particularly long bridge, so it was over relatively quickly. And as a bird lover, it ended up being worth it. The cliffs of Carrick-a-Rede island were full of raucous birds, swooping around on the breeze. Eventually, Charles had to tear me away from the birds so that we could head to our last destination of the day, the Giant’s Causeway.

We had read about the Giant’s Causeway and heard from others who visited it, but we were still unprepared for how striking it would look in person. The formations were caused by extrusive volcanic eruptions that formed rivers of lava that cooled slowly enough to crystalize into interlocking hexagonal columns that seem to rise out of the shore. We hiked out onto the columns which make excellent stools for resting and enjoyed the bright sunshine and sea breeze before catching the bus back up the hill and our car.

We finished the day with a drive along the Antrim Coast on the way to Belfast. We hit a roadblock near Belfast that required us to backtrack and find an alternate route. And then once in Belfast, we had to circle the block a couple of times to find a suitable place to park. By the time we made it to the hotel, it was nearly 8 pm. I was feeling a bit under the weather all day and neither of us had much energy, so we ordered room service (a rarity for us) and called it a night.

Today’s Highlights

• Not being fined for accidentally causing a false fire alarm
• Seeing the iconic murals in Derry’s bogside
• Beautiful views of the cliffs around Dunluce castle
• A bouncy, swingy rope bridge and a chorus of sea birds
• A volcanic landscape that looks like an illustration from a science fiction story
• A drive along the beautiful Antrim Coast
• Soothing hot whiskey delivered right to our room

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Touring the Titanic museum
• Conflicting Stories walking tour of the sectarian Belfast neighborhoods