Far on the north coast of Ireland is an area of about 40,000 interlocking naturally occuring basalt columns. They were caused by a volcanic eruption, and is a Unesco world heritage site. Last April, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz to see this fascinating place.

The causeway itself is actually an area of several horse-shoe shaped inlets which can be reached by a cliff top walk, a hike down a series of 162 steep stairs (known as the shephards steps), or a cheeky little bus taken from the Giant’s causeway hotel. On the way down, we chose to take the cliff walk/stairs – and then the bus back – because the weather was so beautiful. We went past the Pipe Organ (below), and into a giant bowl shaped area known as the Ampitheater.

On the way back we passed the Giant’s Boot, pipe, and also his Camel. According to Irish legend, the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. At some point, tired of waiting, the Scottish Giant came across the water, and somehow, Fionn found out. Realizing that the scottish giant was larger than he himself, Fionn asked his wife to dress him up as a baby. When Benandonner saw the baby, he thought that Fionn must be a truly large giant indeed (because of the size of the baby) and fled back to Scotland, leaving his boot and pipe behind him on the beach.

Jacqui and Liz posing on the boot…

Looking out towards the pipe stem

The Camel, sleeping after the long walk (Giants need something larger than a horse, apparently)

You can see more photos on the Giant’s Causeway flickr set here.