Of One Great Place After Another Part II

It was a beautiful day yesterday and we decided to return to Kinbane Head and kick around there for a few hours for Boxing Day. We never made it. With about three miles to go we took a road signed "Fair Head" and made yet another fantastic discovery.

What we found were glorious walks over wonderful countryside much of it on the cliff's edge with drops of many hundreds of feet to the stoney beach below. Having a fear of edges, knees turned close to jelly the near er we got to a cliff face.Watching three climbers abseil over the edge turned said jelly an awful putrid pink colour! Still a great day though..

Of One Great Place After Another

The wonderful thing about Northern Ireland is that you can keep discovering great new places to visit that few others seem to know about. Recently, Anna and I took the neighbour's dog to the north coast and came across one small sign in a hedge pointing to "Kinbane Head". "Never heard of it" we both declared and decided to give it a go.
For me it's just as interesting as Giant's Causeway and certainly more sheltered. Whilst there we were completely alone and the views were just outstanding. The only one who didn't seem too sure was the dog, Remi. There was nowhere on the stoney beach to launch himself into the sea. This might have been just as well with all seals that were kicking around. I'm not sure how they might have taken to their awkward interloper who is just too playful for his own good at the moment.

Of Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I went to Ballintoy on the north coast of Northern Ireland recently with Anna and the In-laws. Vitali spied a rather interesting wall and joked that he would like to see how far he could walk along it before getting washed off. It was a mistake, for I couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to do just that without of course, the getting washed off bit.

My risk assessment went something like this :

    - Only one wave in four seems to be big enough to make it over the wall

·        -  Of those waves only 50% seem to be big enough to wash you clean off the wall

·         - If you do get washed off you fall into a very big pool. It’s deep enough to break your fall but cold enough to kill you if you don’t get out inside 30 minutes

With all of these three things clearly in my favour I determined it was worth a punt and safely made my way to the end of the wall. What I hadn’t bargained for was the neighbour’s dog wanting to join me. Of course he made his way across without having made any of the above assessments and indeed with no reference at all to what the waves were doing. It was agony as I watched him cross and I saw a wave come right in and give him a good soaking.

We duly studied for a good ten minutes what the sea was capable of then noticing a break in the lashing waves made a dash for it. And No I didn't get taken off the wall by a 6ft wave but very nearly a mad dog on the end of a lead.

Fun, but in a risky sort of way.