North Antrim Coast Trip

Being an Erasmus student at St. Mary’s brings a lot of extras. Not only do we get the opportunity to take different courses and use all the facilities the school has to offer. There is a special program for the international students. Part of this program is that we get the chance to go on different excursions, one of them being the North Antrim Coast Trip.

At 8.15 we had to be at the front entrance of the College to get on the bus. Which is quite early compared to every other day at school. We don’t have early classes and I can sleep in pretty much every day of the week. Anyway, the coast trip means that you drive along the coast lines of Ireland with a few stops along the way. What I loved about this trip is that the day started with a two-hour bus drive to get to the first stop. Which meant that all of the students were slowly waking up whilst admiring the beautiful landscape of Northern Ireland.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
This is a bridge that links the mainland to the tiny island of Carrickarede. It is used as a tourist attraction. And of course we, as tourists in Northern Ireland, have crossed the bridge to get on the island. The view from the island was amazing! It was a shame we couldn’t go all the way up to the top of the island, probably because of the strong wind. I would definitely recommend you going there if you have the chance.

Bushmills Whiskey Distillery
The second stop was the distillery. We had a tour through the buildings and were shown the process of making a quality whiskey. The guide who showed us around was great, he knew how to get a story across and explained everything in detail. What is a tour in a distillery without tasting the whiskey it produces? That’s right, nothing. So after the educational part, there was time for us to try the different kinds of whiskey Bushmills produces. I found out that whiskey is not my cup of tea…

Giant’s Causeway
The last stop of the tour and the one I had been looking forward to the most. The Giant’s Causeway. Before you can walk the route along the causeway, you enter a tiny museum where you can experience the causeway in a theoretical manner. You can watch different videos on how the causeway came to be and play a few games about this Giant Tourist Attraction. And there were a lot of tourists, I can tell you…Most of them were actual professionals, with camera hanging from their neck.
We took an audio tour along the causeway, which was very interesting because this explained a lot more about the setting.

My final conclusion about this day is that it was a very successful day and I have seen the beauty of North Antrim. However, I expected more of the causeway. I had imagined an amazing view and a wonderful landscape. Unfortunately this was not the case in my opinion. I think it is because I have heard amazing things about it and everyone is blown away by what they see…I had high expectations. I still think this tour was worth the travel!