It was another bright morning when we pulled out through the gate, making sure to secure it behind us. We backtracked through the village of Dromara and up to the M1 highway. With the divided highway having speeds of 60 miles per hour or more, we were generally moving along like a freeway. Ahead of us in the left (slow) lane, there were a big yellow and white RV with something hanging from the rear bumper dragging on the ground as it scooted along at near the posted speed limit. As we got nearer, it was clear that it was, in fact, the entire rear bumper hanging by only the barest of connections from the right edge. The whole of it was wagging behind the vehicle like the tail of some giant yellow dog. From time to time, the tip would bounce a few feet into the air and bits of it would fly off. Stay back or pass? How long before the whole thing would bounce off the road and up into my windshield? Then I saw what looked like a roll of duct tape bounce off of it. It was only after I had swerved to avoid it that I realized that it had been a taillight with the wiring still attached. I had my answer: With that, I downshifted and drove around that road hazard as quickly as possible.
We had taken the long way around to avoid going back through Belfast and were soon back on smaller roads, traveling through the countryside, and checking our GPS against the signs we were seeing. We were relieved to see that we were on the right track. Climbing over a small hill, I saw brake lights and a long row of stopped cars on this lightly-traveled road. I came to a stop, and the car turned itself off as a fuel-saving measure. At the cost of gas in Ireland, it is a handy feature to have.
At a stop, we rolled down the windows and heard a sound that reminded me of high school: the snare drums snapping out the rhythm for a marching band. Far ahead, we could see men in tartan marching through the streets of Desertmartin. Once the band had cleared the road, we were able to slowly inch our way ahead and up the rise into the city. There was a crowd at the church, and it appeared that someone of high status had passed, and this massive demonstration of respect had been in their honor.
On and on for about another hour, we continued until we passed the oldest distillery in the world in the city of Bushmills. That, strangely enough, would be the home of Bushmills Irish whiskey, distilling their spirits since 1608. Just on the other side of town was the Causeway Hotel, where we had reserved two nights.
When we tried to enter where our GPS told us to go, a gentleman stopped us and tried to direct us to the large parking lot to the right, where the very modern visitors center for the Giant’s Causeway jutted its silver point up out of the ground like a crash-landed UFO. I let him know that we were not merely day tourists, but guests at the grand old hotel to the left. He asked for our name, called ahead on his walkie-talkie, and waved us through.
We gathered a good first batch of luggage and food to take past the line for the restaurant and up the stairs and down the hall to our room. The room was fine, with a table where we could eat but no refrigerator. That meant we would need to plan our eating based on the shelf life of things like cooked hamburger, Irish butter, salad, bread, cheese, and more. Knowing I had reserved a room with a patio, I swished the curtain out of the way and quickly opened the door to the patio. It was facing the sea with a small path going by the fence a dozen feet from the little wall around our outdoor oasis. The rise to the path and the tall bushes and grasses just beyond prevented our direct viewing of the North Atlantic Ocean just beyond, but it made its presence known with the blowing wind and the occasional sound of crashing surf some two hundred feet below.
Not wanting to waste too much time, we took advantage of the free access to the visitors' center we saw on the way in. They had the obligatory gift shop and cafeteria food you'd find at most national parks (or AONB or Area of Natural Beauty here). The birds and other wildlife of the area were presented in a number of formats, with Dusty grabbing a copy of the bird identification pamphlet for that purpose. The hexagonal pillars that made up the rock formations were volcanic in origin and had been forced up at varying heights, giving the place its name. The size and shape of the formations reminded me of the structure of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. The drama of those pillars rising up out of the surf and those massive cliffs as a backdrop made for an impressive setting. The fact that hundreds of people were walking on them attested to their scale and the crazy risk-taking of tourists.
Just out the back of the center was a bus that would take you the mile or so from the cliff tops down to the water’s edge for a donation of one British pound. On a nicer day we may have walked or shuttled down, but this was not that day. It was still quite overcast with a strong wind blowing. Instead, we opted to climb up a bit for a bird’s eye view of the geology and humanity below.
The higher we went, the more the wind blew. Dusty was still sore from her fall, and we were both a bit road-weary from our drive from the alpaca farm. (I love saying alpaca farm.) Dusty paused for a bit to look down on the bus now far below us, while I scampered forward to take a peek at the actual giant stepping stones covered with tourists. I even changed out my lens to get a better shot with the intent of going down the next day to get a closer look.
We then made our way back to the Causeway Hotel and settled in for an evening meal that would rival the restaurant downstairs. Salad with balsamic beets and bell pepper followed by ground beef and caramelized onion wraps topped by lettuce and aged cheddar cheese. This was accompanied by the remains of a box of Riesling wine.
In the morning, we were treated to a nice breakfast in the dining room before planning the day. The weather suggested that the afternoon would be the time to try going down to see the main event. For the morning, it was possible to go down to the Bushmills Distillery or take a walk along the fields away from the Causeway. The idea of driving back into town for a morning of whiskey sampling sounded like it could lead to trouble, so we opted for the walk.
The trail right behind our room ran east to the Causeway and west along the cliffs toward a beach. Taking a few steps up a berm, you could stand on the cliff edge and be reminded of your own mortality and the natural fear of falling. On closer examination of the near-vertical surface below us, there were clusters of pink flowers that looked like the ones picked by Horton in Horton Hears a Who. That would be a whole lot of Whos.
Moving along, there was a gate to open on the path with a reminder that there were sheep around that did not know how to open the gate themselves. So we closed the gate after going through. There were, in fact, a number of sheep and lambs that were obviously watching for a reckless tourist to leave the gate ajar for their escape.
We would not be those tourists. Returning to the hotel, there were tons of ferns, colorful snails, and a small group of people with notepads and backpacks sitting in a small circle near the cliff. I stopped to chat with one of the studious groups as they got up to move further in the direction we had just come. She explained that they were doing a count of wildlife and plants in the area, and the news was good. The local ecosystem seemed to be maintaining its balance, and the numbers were promising. I told her about our 3-1/2-year cruise, and she said she hoped to go to the Galápagos Islands someday but had never left Northern Ireland. I suggested she schedule it before someday and check out the Andes mountains while she was there. I’m not sure if she will, but she did check out my blog about both places.
The afternoon provided the break in the clouds that we had been promised, and we returned to the road that led down to the Giant’s Causeway. On the long walk down (we opted not to take the bus), we spied lots of lovely little flowers glistening in the dew that was only now starting to dry in the bright sunshine.
There was a steady stream of visitors pounding down that road from all parts of the world, while those on the ascent were working significantly harder. One pair of men about my age (at or near retirement) were teamed up to press forward an aged matriarch in a wheelchair, with each assigned to one handle, fighting upward against gravity. The labor did not seem to rob any of their joy, as all three were smiling.
When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, the black beach of tumbled stone was nothing spectacular. I had seen plenty of similar sights in dozens, if not hundreds, of places. But the crowds were gathered a hundred yards or so further down the road. There were people climbing or posing atop what looked like chiseled stone pillars. Each stone was hexagonal in shape and arranged as if there were ten thousand pipe organs jutting out of the sea. Each was large enough for a grown man to plant both feet atop and pose for their Facebook post.
Dusty, knowing my proclivity for moving about as I take my photographs, told me to go ahead as she rested a bit after our long walk down the hill. I returned to my full stride to find a suitable location to frame the scale of the quarry in front of me while creating the art of the scene and all the while telling the story of its invasion by travelers. Oh, the demands of my art. Actually, just a lot of fun and feeling a bit like a child as I hopped from one giant paver to the next.
Soon, Dusty joined me, and we walked together through the Causeway for a while. On the far end of the World Heritage Site, we spotted the small trail that looped back up the hill to both the visitor’s center and our hotel beyond. Raising her binoculars to her eyes, Dusty could see the steep steps that would be required for her tired knees and was having none of it. We would take the road.
After only a few short stops, we were back at our room. One more night and we would be on our way to our Odyssey and the true beginning of our adventure. We had just enough leftovers from our alpaca farm (love saying that) visit to alleviate our need to dine out. Planned our extension to perfection. Oops. There was a Zoom meeting to be held in just a few hours. Just an update, I hoped.
This is what I posted the next morning on Facebook…
Last night the COO of Villa Vie was in tears as she told us and over a hundred other residents to be of the Odyssey would not be sailing. Again. Delayed. Again. She was heartbroken that all their plans and preparations had not been enough when one item that had previously been good enough was deemed by inspectors to need replacement. A simple, but major component of massive size would require ten days to replace. After a 15-day and then a 5-day delay this was a painful blow for me and all my shipmates. But for the couple who had built the dream it was obviously far worse. They had made promises that the industry would not let them keep. They asked for 24-hours to put together options for all of us to pass the time in a positive way of our choosing.
In my mind a flight to Barcelona with a kitchen in a little efficiency near the metro sounded good. But that meant reservations and command possibly missing the ship launch on the 15th of June.
By 3:00 the next afternoon the COO put out the word that you could go home on their dime, stay in Belfast on their dime, or they would put together a trip to Tenerife Canary Islands for ten days.
After a bit of research (you can Google it yourself) and contemplating the frustration of dealing with the details of a spontaneous trip I took them up on their offer. In a couple days we will be off to Tenerife with about eighty of our fellow shipmates to get to know one another, or not, before rejoining our Odyssey in Belfast.
If you cannot deal with travel surprises you probably shouldn’t sign up for a 3-1/2 year cruise.
To simplify our planning, I called Budget Rentals in Belfast to extend our car rental for two more days, then called the front desk of the hotel to do the same. We would hang out for two more days and then go back to Belfast to continue our vacation while we waited, once again, for our ship to be ready.
We were disappointed, but we pulled up our big boy/girl pants and made the best of it. We walked and wandered, saw pretty sights, got blown around by gale force winds for a bit, and spent another night. We would need to get our luggage on the ship, and I had opted to do it after returning our car to the airport the next day. When the flights were finally arranged, I found out at about 10:30 that we would be leaving at 3:00 the next afternoon. That would make accessing our luggage difficult. Then I found out we would be leaving from Dublin instead of Belfast. That meant we needed to get to Belfast in under three hours and return our car today. Crap! We had to pack and check out in less than an hour and arrange for access to the shipyard. There was good news though. Our new friend, Laura, would be in our group of seven people heading to Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Roll up clothes. Gather dirty laundry. Grab all the chargers. Check the bathroom. Count bags. Recheck everything. Leave uneaten food for housekeeping. Leave a tip for housekeeping. Go. Go. Go.
We made it to the shipyard half an hour before the three o’clock start time for luggage retrieval that had been established. The front gate was efficient and had our names on the list of authorized visitors. I saw that our CEO, Mike, had checked in shortly before us. Good. We drove to park where we had been told and I called the phone number of Kathy, the COO, to see if we could just come aboard or if we needed to be escorted since this was an active work site. She answered her phone, much to my relief, and said that someone would be right down. At this point, we pulled all our stuff from the back of the rental car and made ready to board the ship and exchange what we had for what we would need in the Canary Islands. Ten minutes later, no one had arrived and it began to rain. I put the stuff back in the car and waited a bit more. Another call and an apology from Kathy, and finally we were on our way.
Escorted to the Coral Club and the back of the ship, we saw our luggage. Rather, we saw the dance floor and stage of the club covered with all the luggage that had either been shipped to the Odyssey or sent from our hotels after we had arrived in Belfast. By now, there were a dozen other residents in the room searching for their stuff, and one by one, with the very insistent assistance of our crew, bags were found and pulled aside to either put things in or pull things out for our upcoming flight. We got our 65-lb shipped duffel bag along with the three other pieces of luggage we had turned in when we left Belfast. Between those bags and what we had been carrying for the last five days, we created a small checked bag, two personal items, and my CPAP for our visit to Tenerife.
Matilda made it very clear that we should not make arrangements to go to Dublin to catch our flight the next day because the company would be bussing us all to the train that would take us to Dublin Airport the next day. Mike, our CEO, chatted with us a bit and said to make whatever hotel arrangements we needed and to send the receipts to them for reimbursement. I tried to make reservations at the Leonardo, where I was told the bus would pick us up. Nothing available. So I found something else within walking distance and paid more than I normally would for a one-night stay in Belfast.
We drove back to the airport to return the car and did not pass a gas station on the way, so we drove past due to the insane charges for returning a car without a full gas tank. A quick Google Maps search for “gas station near me” and we got the fill-up we needed. We returned the car and took a cab back to our new hotel for the night.
On arrival at the hotel, I went online to see if there was any new news about our bugout maneuver to the Canary Islands. Much to my surprise, I found that we were, in fact, expected to make our own arrangements to get to Dublin airport in the morning. Damn it. One more miscommunication. One more last-minute travel scramble that I was hoping to have left behind me for three and a half years. When I messaged for guidance, I was sent a link to the train schedule. Meanwhile, Laura had made reservations for a direct bus ride from Belfast to Dublin airport. I used the link that Laura provided and had tickets on the same bus for the next morning.
We met Laura at the bus station the next morning at 9:00. Later, we found out that the other four members of our group had chosen to take a bus an hour later.
That hour was to cause them a lot of trouble.
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