Ulster

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Join Bernard Stanley's fictional characters as they move around the factual beauty spots of Ulster's rugged Causeway Coast.
This story won a tourism short story competition

"Smell it! Breathe it!" The three of us inhaled deeply.
A rush of cold, fresh air coursed through my lungs. It held a salty tang that seemed to penetrate every pore in my body. I breathed out and expelled ten years of city pollution.
A cool Atlantic breeze brushed over our skin, gently protecting us from the heat of a June sun. We stood for ages soaking up the purity of the air and the beauty that is the Giant’s Causeway, unofficially voted the eighth wonder of the world.

Surrounding us was a vast panorama of perpendicular stone columns of various heights. These four, five and even nine sided magnificent pillars were all stretching upwards towards the heavens.

I looked up at Dave. He was standing on one of the higher slabs absorbing the amazing view. "Fantastic!" he exclaimed. "How many do you think there are?"
"Forty thousand at the last count," replied Teresa, gingerly picking her way over the slippery stones. "And wait until you see this..."

"Look!" Teresa pointed ahead. We stopped and gazed in wonder at the astonishing rock formation. It looked just like the pipes of a gigantic grand organ that had been etched into the side of the mountain by some magical stonemason at the beginning of time.
"Finn MacCool," Teresa said. Dave looked at her.
"He’s Ulster’s friendly giant," I explained. "Tradition has it that he started to build this causeway to take him over to Scotland as he wanted to fight the evil Scottish giant."
"And he also made the organ for Ossian, his son to play," Teresa added.

Dave laughed heartily. "You two have still got a bit of the blarney in you."
"Maybe," I replied, teasing him. "But they say that on a peaceful day, and a calm sea, you can still hear the music of Ossian drifting around the Causeway. Listen!"

We stood silent. The distant roar of the ocean was a background to the lapping and splashing of the water as it created a foaming pathway around the rocks. A noisy flock of seagulls glided in with the waves, their mournful cries echoing around the pillars. And sure enough, an eerie, distant sound of music reached our ears.
A look of amazement flooded over Dave’s face.

Teresa burst out laughing and he suddenly realised that the music was nothing more mythical than a country song playing from a near-by couple’s radio.
"Anyway," I said, as we made our way back to the car, "I’d rather believe that Finn MacCool built the Causeway and not a boring old volcano."

BUSHMILLS DISTILLERY
Co. Antrim

The fresh, bracing air had whetted our appetite and we stopped for a meal at Bushmills, a lovely little village and home of my favourite whiskey. While we waited for our food, I ordered a few drams of the ‘Bush’ for Dave and myself. Teresa had been elected car driver for the day so she had a coke.

Dave had his first taste of Bushmills whiskey. He took a sip and nodded in approval. "How could you two possibly leave this beautiful area to live in London?" Teresa and I shook our heads. We had asked ourselves the same question a hundred times over the years. "We had to go where the work was," I replied honestly, "and anyway, if we hadn’t gone we wouldn’t have met you."
He smiled and drained the last few drops from his glass. "Two days ago we were being typical civil servants in a stuffy city office pushing bits of paper around, and now - magic. This country is amazing....."

He suddenly stopped mid-sentence and gazed in disbelief at the tray of food that had just been set down in front of him. "But there’s only three of us," he protested.
Even by generous Ulster standards this was a big one. Teresa played mother and handed around the plates.

It was an hour later before our three bloated figures rolled out of the pub. "That was not a meal," Dave gasped, ‘that was an endurance test.’ Teresa and I looked at each other and smiled knowingly.
He still had to face an Ulster Breakfast.

The car was low down on its springs as we set off. The roads here are good and the traffic is light. As we gazed at the passing landscape of farms and fields it was obvious why Ireland is known as the land of the ‘forty shades of green’.

We pulled in to look at the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge. It’s a swinging bridge made of wood and ropes that sways precariously in the continuous wind of the rugged Antrim coastline. "What’s it for?" asked Dave as we got out of the car and collapsed in a heap on the grass. "Fishermen use it to get over to their salmon nets," Teresa replied.
"Anyone want to try it?" I looked at the massive chasm the bridge was spanning, and the long drop to the bottom and decided to pass on that treat.

"I’ll have a go," Dave said, jumping to his feet. He made his way to the edge and took an experimental step onto the bridge. It started to creek and groan ominously. He gripped the rope handrail until his knuckles went white, and took another shaky step. Then he made his big mistake. He looked down. A million miles below, the sea splattered rocks smiled up at him. Fortunately for Teresa’s delicate ears, whatever he screamed next was carried off by the wind in the opposite direction. He did a quick reverse turn and was back beside us in five seconds.
"What a hero," I said, "- not."

Dunluce Castle was next. The ancient ruins are spread over an acre of ground and sit on a cliff edge over one hundred feet above the sea which surrounds it on three sides. We posed for lots of photos using the old castle and the rugged coastline as a beautiful backdrop.
"If that castle could talk," Dave mused.

Apparantly it was fought over many times in its past and it is steeped in myths and legends. On a clear day the castle looks over an expanse of ocean from here to Donegal and round to Islay, a view which has remained unchanged for centuries.

Our next ports of call were the seaside resorts of Portstewart and Portrush, two picturesque little towns nestling beside each other a few miles further along the coast.We settled down on a hill overlooking a sleepy little harbour, and licked our way through obscene sized ice-cream cones. "I’m glad we did this today," Teresa said, as she wiped a bit of ice-cream from my nose.
"God, we would have been back in London by now." Dave shuddered at the thought. We had flown over to Belfast yesterday morning to go to a friend’s wedding in the late afternoon. We should have flown back this morning. Then we had made an instant decision to stay another night and show Dave our old neck of the woods.
"We’d better move on," Teresa said reluctantly. Dave sighed. "I could stay here for ever," he said, "just watching the boats bobbing around in the harbour." I knew what he meant. Time didn’t seem to exist here.

New University
of Ulster

We drove past the New University of Ulster, and through Coleraine heading towards our hotel at Castlerock, an idyllic, quiet little village, snugly sitting close to the ruins of another old castle - Downhill.
Later we took a walk across miles of golden sand and struggled to the top of the highest sand- hill. It was well worth it. "Awesome." Dave breathed the word as we sat and drank in the stunning beauty of the Barmouth.

The wide vista of the blue shimmering Atlantic ocean funnelled down to a point between two large piers that became the entrance to the River Bann.
The river lazily meandered it’s way inland, zigzagging around wild bird sanctuaries and flowing past some of Ulster’s most breath-taking scenery. The sun had dropped low in the sky and it’s evening rays bathed the landscape with an extra warmth of colour that made the beauty of the scene so strong it was almost painful to absorb.

Dave was still talking about it hours later when I reached him his first pint of local Guinness. "What rubbish have I been drinking in London?" he asked after he had tasted it.
"Over here they know how to pull a pint," I said, as we all raised our glasses. "Cheers!"
Dead on cue the pub group started playing and for the next two hours we sang, danced, ate and drank with an intensity I thought we had lost ten years ago.

"Everyone is so unbelievably nice" Dave gasped, during a rare quiet moment. He wiped the sweat from his face. "You feel you have know them all your life, it’s - ahhhh." There was a flurry of bodies as a couple of his new friends dragged him onto the floor for the next dance. It was a brilliant end to a perfect day and it was sheer exhaustion that eventually drove us to our bedrooms. Teresa and I gazed at the amazing view from our bedroom window. The sky was a deep navy blue and in the distance it seemed to merge into the peaceful, still water of the Atlantic.

The dark surface of the ocean was dotted with flickering lights from a cluster of fishing boats and way beyond them was the repetitive blink of a never sleeping lighthouse."We must never stay away as long again," Teresa whispered.
I closed the curtains and in what only seemed to be a few seconds of eternity I was opening them again to let the morning sun flood the bedroom.
We went downstairs to meet Dave and to help him through the last obstacle of his holiday - breakfast.
We had missed it yesterday due to our early start.

He was already at the table sipping a glass of orange juice. "I want to take my bed home with me," he said, "it was so comfortable."
"You were sleeping on a feather bed," Teresa told him. "You realise," I said, "that because of your bed there are fifty bald chickens running around outside." We all burst into fits of laughter when suddenly Dave stopped mid-giggle. It had arrived. The Ulster fry. It was a large plate smothered with eggs, sausages, bacon, fried potato bread, tomatoes.....
"I can’t eat this," he pleaded. "I’m a ‘slice of toast’ person."

"It’s ok," I said sympathetically. "Just nibble a few things and leave the rest." He started into the bacon and ten minutes later he was the first to finish. He looked amazed. "How did I do that?" "With the greatest of pleasure," we replied.
Then the dreaded moment came. It was time to leave for the airport.
"You know," Dave said as he closed the car door, "I’ve never had such a happy time in all my life. We must do this again soon."