Eleventh stop...The Gobbins

I thought I might sleep since it was 8 o’clock when we went to bed, but no, we woke up at midnight, stayed up for a few hours, and then crashed about 4.30am and slept until 8.30! We woke up to a stunningly beautiful landscape with a view down to the ocean, and a bright, sunny, but chilly day. With clear skies, the overnight temperature had dropped but hadn’t got down to zero.

Snowball the cat wanted some attention and kept rubbing herself around my legs while I was trying to video. I ended up giving up and going to have a quick 3 minute shower, but stayed in my jammies. We needed to get gas (we had run out during the night), diesel, pounds sterling cash for Jennifer, and coffee so headed to Bushmills. No petrol stations there, so we kept going towards Coleraine, where we knew there was at least one. Not too far out of Bushmills, we found one. Ross filled up while I used the cash machine, and the attendant swapped the gas. All done. I skipped the coffee as it was just a Nescafe machine.

Back to Feigh Farm where I cooked up the remainder of the Irish sausages, black and white puddings, and bacon plus an egg and two slices of cheese ciabatta each. Quite a filling breakfast, even though it was almost noon. We were off at last. The Gobbins, here we come!

The day stayed fine and we drove through some beautiful countryside, and really appreciated having no wind or rain! We arrived at The Gobbins visitor centre at 2.25pm only to find the last tour was at 1 o’clock. I really needed a real coffee, but was tempted by the peanut butter stack, which was worth every calorie. Ross tried the apple pie with cream with his coffee. We “travelled through time” reading about the history of The Gobbins, and found out the first tour tomorrow is at 10am. I will have to hire special shoes though; hiking sandals are not allowed!

We drove along The Gobbins Peninsula to find a spot to camp for the night. (The camping ground that was marked no longer exists!) The roads are narrow with no pull-offs, but we finally found a spot in a driveway to a work-site, and pulled off far enough that a vehicle could squeeze past us if necessary. It was just on 4, but I really needed to lie down. Of course, I fell asleep immediately, woke up at 7.30, but didn’t know if it was 7.30pm or 7.30am! I was hoping it was the latter! Before I could summon the energy to get out of bed, I was asleep again. That bed has some sort of soporific effect on me. I woke up at midnight. Ross and I shared an old McDonald’s bagel, which he heated up in the frypan, with coffee and cranberry and white chocolate biscuits, with a Bailey’s truffle to top it off. Back to bed and awake again at 4.30am! Oh, for a whole night’s uninterrupted sleep!