Dark Hedges and Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge – Ballintoy, Northern Ireland

After Belfest our Shamrocker Adventures All Ireland Rocker tour bus continued north towards the coast lines. Along the way we made a few stops!

Game of Thrones Fan? Well I’ve not inadvertently visited two major sites for Kings landing, with Dubrovnik Croatia being the other. I guess I should get around to watching that series…

Proof I was here!

The dark hedges basically line a road between two fields, one end is very popular and the site of most of those famous “Dark Hedges” photos you always see with tones of tourists clamoring to get selfies and photos. We came in from the other end of the trail… less people so viola!

The other end of the Hedges – I only had to photoshop out 3 tourist!

After our brief stop at the hedges we continued north to Ballitoy, a quaint small village along the north shore of the island where we will be staying the night in order to get us quickly to Giant’s Causeway in the morning.

The view from the front of our hostel and pretty much the entire village!

There is honestly very little to do in Ballitoy other than head down to the shore and get some breaths of fresh ocean air. Since I brought my Z6 and Sirui Video Monopod I decided to give some long-exposure photography a go as we quickly lost the light.

Night finally set in and we headed back up the hill to the town
(Photoshopped Star Filled Sky as it Was Cloudy)
The Fullerton Arms – The Only Pub in Town.

Once it was dark we returned to Ballitoy and some of us, despite the rain decided to check out the local pub, the Fullerton Arms. I wanted to try some local Irish Ciders, and get some solid Irish experience. There was live music at the arms and it seemed like a pretty lively place.

Its a Saturday night so for entertainment the locals tried to play matchmaker with some of the female tour-mates and local lads from around town. It was all in good fun but we eventually turned in as we had an exciting day tomorrow and some of us (me) were going to try to stick in an extra event before we left.

Famous Rope Bridge just outside Ballitoy, Northern Ireland

I and a few other adventurous souls woke up early in the morning in order to make the trek to Carrick-a-Rede, a rope bridge that you can walk over (with a ticket). We didn’t have time to wait for it to open, which is fine by me (I’m not the biggest fan of heights – despite what that zip-lining video I took may disagree).

At this point I need to start thanking my Shamrocker Adventure Tour Mates for taking the time to capture some photos of me… I’m too often always behind the camera to remember that I need to show I actually visited places!

Okay, now on to the main attraction for which I’m in Northern Ireland for… the giant’s Causeway!

About Graeme

Graeme is a traveler who enjoys photographing pretty much anything. He is also the webmaster for MegaPixelTravel.com
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