We were off to explore the north east coast of Northern Ireland today so after breakfast at the guesthouse we walked down to the tour office to meet our bus. Setting off at 10am with a chock-a-block bus we first stopped at Carrickfergus for a quick photo stop at the 12th century Norman castle only about 20mins north of Belfast. The driver kept up the commentary the whole journey as we continued along the Antrim coast road passing quaint little fishing villages & plenty of stonewalled paddocks with black faces sheep & Guinness striped cows. Our next stop was the Carrick A Rede rope bridge which we had considered crossing until we found there was a 30min wait & after the 1km walk along the cliffs to get there it rained anyway so we were happy to turn around and head back to the tea rooms for another long line to get some sandwiches for lunch. Further north along the coast road we had a lunch stop (at a barn with only a few takeaway options so we were glad to have already eaten) then it was just around the corner to the Giants Causeway. Another 1km walk down along the coast we soon arrived at the hexagon stone columns which were absolutely crawling with ants, I mean tourists. It was quite windy & very similar weather to when I had been here previously in December 2008. We had a bit of a climb over the columns of unusual geology & took a few pictures before making the trek back up to the visitor centre (unlike all the lazy people in the huge queue for the bus back up). They had just opened the new visitors centre the year before & luckily we managed to sneak in at the back of a tour group for the toilets as there was no way I would pay £8.50 to get into what seemed to be just the cafe, gift shop, toilets & a short film on how the causeway formed. From here the bus took us to the Bushmills Distillery for a quick look but we did manage to get a free taste once again tagging onto the back of a group who had just finished a distillery tour. Unsurprisingly I didn't like the whiskey, it just burns, but Sean appreciated it. Our final stop for the day was Dunluce Castle which despite being ruins perches on the edge of rough cliffs being pounded by the Irish Sea. We took the direct road back to Belfast rather than the coast & arrived back about 6.30pm to go in search of some dinner. We settled on Chinese which was ok & at least something different than pub food. The final tourist attraction to tick off in Belfast was The Crown Liquor Saloon which is still lit by gas fired lighting & has original little enclosed nooks. We enjoyed a pint here in our own nook before returning to the guesthouse for the night.