We take a little detour off the A2 and stay closer to the coast on Tor Road, passing through a quilt-work of green farmland.


Very picturesque!


Some entertaining twists and turns in the road

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There's a popular lookout at the end of a dead end road called Torr Head

A dilapidated coast guard station stands at the top of Torr Head, and you can hike around it to get great views of the sea and shore below. There are a couple of other bikers walking around and we nod our heads to each other in acknowledgement. Their mouths are pursed when they do so, which is the International Bikers sign for: "Not a good day for a ride"...


The view from Torr Head. Spectacular!

We climb back on the bikes to head west along the top of the Antrim Coast Road, and as soon as we pull out of Torr Head, the rains slam down on top of our heads. Exactly like we knew it would. Sorry, no more pictures while riding in the rain. The road is slick and winding, so it's best to keep both hands on the handlebars - instead of taking blurry pictures of water droplets on the camera's lens.


Our next stop: Ballintoy Harbour, otherwise known as The Iron Islands on the Game of Thrones

Yes, another Game of Thrones shooting location. We've been all over Croatia and Spain visiting them, it's kind of become a theme for our European leg. Why stop now? Belfast is actually where one of the main production sound stages for the show is located.

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Taking a walk around the Iron Islands, keeping an eye out for Theon Greyjoy. Still pouring buckets so we keep our helmets on.

It's always funny walking around with our helmets on. We keep the comms open, so while we wander around the area, I don't even have to be within visual range of Neda and we're still talking in each other's ears. To passersby, it looks like we're talking to ourselves. In the background, I can hear the microphone pick up the *plok* *plok* *plok* of the rain hitting her helmet.


The rain collecting on my camera lens gives this picture a neat tilt-shift look

The pictures may look dreamy, but these are cold, wet and miserable conditions for both walking and riding around here. We had fairly good weather in Scotland and the Isle of Man. I figure the rains were overdue, given where we are.

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After just another 15 minutes ride westwards, we run across a huge parking lot and an even bigger visitors centre. We park the bikes and then take a 20 minute hike (too cheap to pay for a shuttle bus) towards the coast to find:


Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland's most popular tourist attraction

The Giant's Causeway is thousands of hexagonal basalt rock columns rising out from the floor of the coastline. They look totally alien and cool, and you wonder how nature could make anything look like that.


We're not the only ones who think it looks cool. Led Zeppelin did too, so they put it on the cover of their Houses of the Holy album

The photoshoot for the Houses of the Holy album cover was done on a grey and rainy day (seems like there aren't any other days but these at the Giant's Causeway), so the figures were washed out. Unhappy with the way the photos turned out, the photographer sent them to an airbrush artist who accidentally tinted the photo with unintended colours. The rest is history.


Too cold and wet to put on a blonde wig and crawl around these rocks butt-nekkid. If I did, I'd definitely need a lot of airbrushing...

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I wanted to take a picture of the rocks for my web Page. I noticed there was a Plant growing between the columns!

I had to Google how these patterns were formed. So unusual!

You know how mud or salt dries into hexagonal shapes, like on the desert floor or the floor of a dried lake or river bed? 60 million years, basalt lava came up from below the chalk floor and dried, the surface forming hexagon shapes. But as the lava cooled, these surface cracks extended all the way down the basalt rock, forming these amazing-looking hexagonal columns that rise and fall around the landscape.


There are around 40,000 columns at the Giant's Causeway

Legend has it, the Irish giant, Finn MacCool (no joke), was challenged to a duel by a Scottish giant, Benandonner, who lived across the strait. So MacCool built a causeway across the North Channel so he could fight the Scot. Since this is an Irish tale, the Irish giant wins in the story, and the Scottish giant runs back across the channel, destroying the causeway behind him so MacCool couldn't follow him back.

There are similar basalt rock columns on the other side of the North Channel on the Scottish side, at Fingal's Cave.

So the story must totally be true.


The columns look like 3D bar charts or those toys where you stick your face or your hand below a bed of pins and they move up to mimic the same shape

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An estimated 1 million Led Zeppelin fans visit Giant's Causeway every year

It's so crowded here, even in the pouring rain! I had to wait awhile for people to move out of my shot, so after some time, I just took pictures of tourists at the Causeway...


Here's another tourist descending down the basalt column stairway to heaven

Pedestrian access to the Giant's Causeway is free (which we like). How they make money is charging you for the shuttle bus between the parking lot and the coast: £1 each way (Nah), and also entrance fee to the visitor's centre, which is £9 per person (Big Nope).


The parking lot is only for people who paid to get into the visitors centre, so we parked just outside the lot

I love that we can park our bikes pretty much anywhere in Europe and nobody cares. I hate that it is still pouring rain when we head out again. No matter. If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. That's me, singing to my bike...

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

The original plan was to keep following the Antrim Coast Road a bit south towards Londonderry before heading north again. I was very interested in seeing the Bloody Sunday memorial and some of the murals on the buildings in the town where the 1972 massacre took place. But we had done a lot of sight-seeing today and it would probably take another 3-4 hours if we took the long way down and then back up again.

Despite our early start, we were quickly running out of daylight. Plus it was still raining...


So the decision was made to call it a day and take the short, 15-minute ferry from Magilligan Point, crossing the border...

...into Ireland!

Shiver me Shamrocks!

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Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/362.html



Crossing over from Northern Ireland to Ireland was trivial. At the ferry, there were no customs, no checkpoints, no security. This is not that surprising, as the 500 km border between the two countries (UK and Ireland) has always been undefended.

We are still reeling from the recent Brexit vote and we're trying to figure out how this will affect the both of us on a personal level. But on a larger scale, I wonder how they will police and enforce this border when Britain cleaves itself away from the European Union, of which Ireland will still remain a part of.

But really, all of these geo-political musings are secondary to our immediate concern: Getting warm, getting dry and staying indoors for longer than 24 hours.


We are staying in another AirBnB, this time in a much smaller village on the Inishowen Peninsula


After the rains subside, we hang all of our wet gear out on the clothes line outside our place to dry

We didn't get a chance to get some quality indoors time in Belfast, so we've booked *three whole nights* (LUXURY) in a place just outside of Carndonagh, which is a tiny town on the northern peninsula of Ireland. The first day, we just sleep and laze around the house, and Neda is happy that she can prepare a home-cooked meal in a proper kitchen. Our host has a small dog in the house and we try to make friends with it, but it is scared to death of us. So unusual, with so many AirBnBers in and out of the place, you'd think the dog would be used to strangers.

Not being able to play with the dog makes Neda very sad.

Apart from resting and relaxing, my primary chore is to bring all our drying gear indoors when it starts to rain, and then hang them up on the line when the rains stop. With the damp air, it takes forever for our stuff to dry.

Riding in the rain is very familiar for the RideDOT.com team. So is drying our gear on our days off...

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

With one rest day under our belts, we venture out into the Inishowen Peninsula the next morning feeling very much refreshed

We're headed to the very top of the peninsula, called Malin Head. The conditions are not optimal, the roads are still damp and the sun is nowhere to be seen. But the rain stays off our helmets, so that means it's a good day to ride.


We're not the only ones. Other two-wheeled brethren (motorized and non) also decide it's a good day to ride


Star Wars font at Malin Head

Just four months ago, Malin Head was brimming with activity. Film crews invaded this sleepy rural community to film a scene for Star Wars Episode VIII (The Last Jedi). All the roads to Malin Head were closed off for three days, and die-hard fans traveled all the way over here to catch a glimpse of what was rumoured to be the Millennium Falcon, perched on a rock just off the northern coast.

A Jedi Master was posted at the start of the road. Fans who drove up were told, "This is not the movie set you're looking for. There's nothing to see here. Move along... move along..."

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Speaking of moving along, we were told to move our bikes away from the Start/Finish line. Neda chats to some cyclists

It looks like there's some kind of bicycle race underway here. Support vans are parked off to the side as groups of cyclists head down the hill to start their race. I did some research and there's some kind of race here almost every month. Just like Britain has the Land's End to John O'Groats route, this is the start (or finish) of the famous Malin Head to Mizen route, going from the very northernmost point in Ireland to the very southern tip of the island.

Different organizers and charities set up races or rallies during the warm weather months. It'll take these bicyclists about three days to complete the 810 km coastal route, averaging around 270 kms/day. The record for bicycles is 19 hours. The record for runners is 4 days. The Millennium Falcon made the Malin Head/Mizen Run in less than 12 parsecs.

I have a feeling these cyclists will reach Mizen a lot sooner than we will...


View of the coast from Malin Head


From the spy pictures I found on-line, it looks like they put the Millennium Falcon on one of these rocks during the film shoot. Cool!

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Neda Jedi Mind Tricks me into taking a hike around Malin Head. It's a trap!


Hairy caterpillar at Malin Head


The reason why there are very few pictures of me hiking is because this is what I normally look like... Taking a break, catching my breath, trying to keep up with Neda

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Beautiful coastline at the very northern point of Ireland. Can't wait to see that Star Wars movie now!


Waves of the Atlantic Ocean crash on the rocks below us


Okay, enough hiking, back on the bikes! We've got some bicyclists to pass!

These thatched roofs on some of these houses remind me of the Manx cottages on the Isle of Man.

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Zoom zoom! Through the Inishowen Peninsula

There are many ways to get from Malin Head to Mizen. The most straightforward route is only about 612 kms through the interior, but over the next few days, we are going to take the longer coastal route which is called The Wild Atlantic Way. We're actually here because an Irish rider (and fellow R1200GSer) I met in Edinburgh last month recommended this route when I asked him for some good riding roads in Ireland.

"Just follow the road along the west coast and you can't go wrong!", he told me. Easy enough.





Sticking to the Wild Atlantic Way takes us through Mamore Pass on the west coast of the peninsula

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At the top of the pass, Neda makes us roadside sandwiches. Lunch with a great view of the plains below!


The road continues through the Mamore Gap, which takes us through breathtaking scenery

The rest of Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way beckons to us. I really hope the weather holds up.

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/363.html



Our trip out of the Inishowen Peninsula involves a lot of interior riding, through the urban area of Letterkenny. Not very picturesque, so not a lot of photos. But Letterkenny looks to be the last major city until we hit the very southern tip of Ireland, so it's all nice, uninterrupted coastal roads and quaint seaside villages from here on. Nice!

I'm on route-planning duties through the UK. Neda reminds me I have a British passport, so automatically that makes me the Ireland expert. I've never been here in my life. I think she's just lazy. Oh yeah, she also says, "I don't understand what anyone is saying here. You have to translate for me..."

Yep. Lazy.

From the map, I planned a route through Glenveagh National Park. But when we arrived at the gates, we discovered that the road on the map is really a hiking trail. No motorized vehicles allowed. So we have to backtrack all the way out and route around the park. That threw a monkey wrench in our plans, and with daylight slowly slipping away, we end up setting up camp somewhere north of the park, in a tiny village called Crolly.

There's a small convenience store nearby, so it's a typical tent and sandwich evening for us. A light drizzle accompanies us while we set up camp and eat, so we call it an early night, disappointed at the lack of sights today and the poor weather that accompanied it.


In the morning, we head out of Crolly, eager to see ride through some better scenery than the day before

The light drizzle from yesterday continues on today. Not optimal, but we've ridden through worse downpours before, so this is really not anything that bothers us too much. Once again, not many riding pictures, but this time because of the water pelting down on my camera lens.


Riding through County Donegal

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the lush green scenery that we're passing by. What with all the rain!

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