Giants Causeway

We drove out to the site of Giants Causeway our first evening in Ireland. We were too exhausted to even think about venturing beyond the parking lot. The wind and cold made our decision to turn around and find some dinner easy.

We returned to Giant’s Causeway on day 3 of our trip. Kilmail Country Chalet was selected for our two-day B&B stay in the area because of its close proximity to sites we wished to visit multiple times. We were 15 minutes away from both the Giant’s Causeway and The Dark Hedges. We arrived early enough to have all the causeway to ourselves. It was a beautiful morning. Blue skies with lovely clouds overhead. We walked around photographing this amazing wonder for almost two hours. Cyndie and I both agreed that we could have easily spent an entire day here. There is just so much to see and photograph at this natural wonder.

The Giant’s Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (4.8 km) northeast of the town of Bushmills. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986, and a national nature reserve in 1987 by the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, the Giant’s Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 ft) thick in places.

Much of the Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site is today owned and managed by the National Trust and it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Northern Ireland. The remainder of the site is owned by the Crown Estate and a number of private landowners.