There’s only so much fun you can have in the forest before you feel the need to move on, especially when there’s whiskey to be tasted!

I had booked us in with Neil at Craig House C&CC site a  mere spit from the Giant’s Causeway on the north coast and just outside of Bushmills village – home of the world famous distillery, but we couldn’t check in until 4pm, so we loitered and took the coastal route north.  First stop was by Lough Neagh, right in the middle of the landmass.

We stopped at a coastal park slash picnic area just outside of Antrim and had a very frugal picnic, mainly due to the lack of supplies on board.

We decided to take the slow road, so from Antrim headed out to Larne to pick up the A2 which basically goes all the way around the coast, with a couple of minnow detours in the top corner.  We liked the look of loads of coastal spots, but most of them were unwelcoming for the taller vehicle, so we continued…

We got the full tour of the facilities on arrival at the camp, which at 25 nicker per night was very acceptable, and the anklebiterz were so befuddled after hours of screen gazing on the road that they actually made themselves useful and helped to peg out the new outdoor carpeting.  Of course arguing all the while about who gets to hold the mallet and threatening to fight each other all the while.

After a very bumptious tea of kebabs and wraps and that, I did some pre-googling for the attractions we wished to enjoy.  I booked us on to the Giatnt’s Causeway Visitor Experience from 11am on the Sunday, and discovered from the NT website that longer vehicles are not welcome in the car park and we should park and ride in Bushmills Village, or get the Heritage Railway, more on that later.

Looking at tours and tastings for the distillery, spaces were limited at the last minute, so we decided, being familiar with a distillery tour that we’d just go to the gift shop, and make a pub lunch and a meander through the village our excusrison on the Saturday.

We parked in the Dundarave car park near the Visitor Information Centre (free) and checked out the bus times for Sunday – good job we did!  We took a walk to the distillery and found that we could book on to a tour for 4pm at 42 euro which included a drink at the end, happy days.

We perused the tourist toot in the souvenir shops, got sidetracked in the book shop (KB thought the sign said Beef Shop) and went to the Bushmills Inn for lunch – a very nice (quite posh) hotel and restaurant which seated us in a very old fashioned wooden booth and lifted our legs for a set of main courses and desserts – actually only a fiver more than Daft Eddy’s at the previous stop.

We drove down to the distillery after lunch ( v. podged) and waited for our tour with Andrew at 4pm.  We got the full process explained, had a sniff of some old barrels and watched some very informative audio visuals to commplement the whole experience.  We ended in the bar, where we tasted a 10 year old and a 12 year old between us, and didn’t find any significant difference between the 2 – the 12 year old only available at the distillery shop.  Andrew informed us that if we were quick we could have a go on a flight of whiskeys in the bar and get oursens to the shops to make some interesting purchases – apparently they are immeninetly going to release a 50 year old whiskey at 25 grand – glad we have already celebrated that milestone!!!

We purchased a 3 shot flight of whiskeys in the bar for 30 nicker – a 12, 16 and 21  year old.  We were told that the 16 yr old was a port wood finish – which I was very much looking forward to, and the 21 year old was madeira finish, which I’ve never been keen on before.  But the beauty of a side by side tasting is that you get to compare.  We both agreed that the 21 year old was the one to have, so we shelled out the best part of 200 quid on a gift box with decorative snifters. KB texted Rich to inform him we haven’t checked our alternator recently, just for good measure!

The infants and juniors were mortified that we were happy to spend so much wedge on whiskey – they have no idea!!

The plan for Sunday was to get up reasonably early, head in to Bushmills and catch the 1022 bus to the visitor centre in good time for our time slot at 11.  We were ready early – mainly because we decided to get breakfast out, and we went to Bilberry Cafe by the war memorial, right next to the bus stop for the 402 out to the causeway.  We misjudged the time slightly so asked for our food and drink to go, and actually ended up sprinting for the bus before having downed the lot, Madame nearly leaving her strawberry and banana smoothie in the caff – which will never do as we shelled out 50 sheets on brekkie – the same as 2 nights at our campsite! (Rip off!)

The bus was actually really nice – clean and modern and efficient, it got us to the visitor centre in 4 minutes.  Me and H finished off our snap and then we headed in.  We opted for the self guided audio tour and took the relatively easy  green and blue route, taking in Humphrey the camel, the Windy Gap, the Gian’ts Gate, the actual causeway itself and the Giant’s boot (size 93.5 don’t you know!)  Me and H opted to continue on to the start of the red path to go up the hill to see the Pipe Organ and then come back down again.

As befitting a UNESCO World Heritage site, it was snided with tourists, and getting some interesting pics which didn’t feature thousands of randoms was a challenge, but the scenery was absolutely majestic and it was well worth the visit.

We wended our way back to the visitors centre where we had very lacklustre baked goods and liquid refreshment – for 30 quid this time instead of 50 and were intending to get the heritage railway back to town, but on taking our lives into our hands walking down the lane to the station, we discovered that we would need to wait 53 British minutes to access the locomotive joy – so we removed to the bus stop to recoup our return bus tickets and head back to camp.

The site was a bit of a contrast to the Forest Park – less manicured, more rural, and the facilities could do with a bit of TLC, but for 25 quid and with a very jovial host we wouldn’t be put off going back again.

Next stop the Republic – and the wild atlantic coast of Donegal