North Coast Road Trip | Ireland

I'm currently writing this from my room in Spain and thus bring you another throwback post to around two weeks ago when my housemate, Carlo from uni came to visit me at home. At the time, with my departure to Spain looming and any excuse to explore some of the fairer corners of my tiny homeland being good enough for me, we decided to spend some time on the Irish coast.

I believe I've mentioned this before but my aunt and uncle own a holiday home on the Causeway Coast, an area which makes up the majority of Ireland's northern coastline, stretching some 130 miles. It's considered by many to be amongst the most scenic areas in Northern Ireland and thanks to the National Trust, many of its landmarks and beaches are kept in pristine condition. It's along here that you'll find the Giants Causeway, the area's namesake, as well as a vast number of Game of Thrones filming locations which Carlo was quite keen to see. So, with my aunt and uncle very kindly allowing us to use their house as a base, we decided to spend a few days exploring.

As it turned out, all of these photos were taken on our very last day, in a frantic attempt to squeeze in everything we still needed to see! Thankfully we did manage to fit in quite a lot in just a few hours.

Our first stop was Dunluce Castle, a striking 16th century fortress that sits atop a basalt outcropping, giving the appearance of it rising out of the sea. It had been a long time since I'd been inside the ruins so we decided to go in for a closer look.

There are plenty of nooks, turrets and secret hideaways to explore around the castle, not to mention some dramatic views over the castle walls of the cliffs and sea surrounding it, all of this, as well as some of the features that remain across the castle's sweeping expanse, such as window frames and alcoves are a reminder of its former glory. 

I actually found a really interesting article by the Belfast Telegraph containing '50 things you probably never knew about Dunluce Castle', if you'd like to hear more about the castle's fascinating history. There were plenty of things on there that I'd never heard before!

Our next destination was supposed to be Balintoy Harbour- better known perhaps as the Iron Islands and Pyke, home of House Greyjoy, to Game of Thrones fans- but decided to make an impromptu pit stop at White Park Bay, one of my favourite north coast beaches.

I was adamant that there were caves somewhere along this beach because I'd remembered exploring them when I was younger, so the first thing we did was to set off across the rocks to find them. To no avail, though, as it turned out. The tide was starting to come in at this point so the top end of the beach where I thought the caves were had been made inaccessible. All was not lost though, since the beach is still beautiful, even in its absence of caves.

For some reason I can't find any photos of Ballintoy though I did take some, so unfortunately we'll just have to move swiftly on to the last leg of our journey, a stop at the Dark Hedges in Armoy, a long pathway lined on either side with intertwining beech trees, which once featured as the Kingsroad in Game of Thrones.

Apparently it's the most photographed natural phenomenon in Northern Ireland which is surprising since surely the Giant's Causeway would be the most photographed natural phenomenon? In any case, it really is a sight to behold and photos really don't do it justice. We made it there in the last hour or so of daylight so the light was absolutely stunning. It's one of my favourite places on the north coast for sure.