Ireland/Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland and Ireland in 2 days!

Hi all, this is Mrs Cumming.  We are up the north west of Ireland in County Donegal.  It is 10pm and Mr Cumming has gone off to find a mountain to climb! It is still light here so we are able to make the most of every day...working during the day for Mr Cumming and then exploring in the afternoon/evening. I read that it has been really cold in Bunbury..we have been very lucky over here, with hardly any rain.

We arrived in Ireland last week and had a few days off visiting Ireland's west coast.There are castles, ruins, cliffs, mountains, green hills, lakes everywhere and it is all so beautiful. We then drove across to Northern Ireland, near Belfast, where Mr Cumming visited the school (see last post), then that afternoon we headed up the coast to see the most stunning scenery....my favourite was a place called the Giant's Causeway (see photos) which is a large mass of column rocks formed over 60 million years ago by volcanic activity.The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal although there are also some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (36 ft) high and they all fit together like a jigsaw. There are about 40 000 rocks in the area, but I'm not sure who counted them!  Ask Mr Cumming the other story of how they were formed which I think is a much better story..about the 2 giants!

We then drove along the coast but it took us 7 hrs to travel 160 kms because we kept stopping to look at all the amazing scenery.  This morning we found a very old castle called Dunluce Castle which was built in the 16th Century. It is perched high on a cliff and has started to fall down, but is great to see and read about. (see photos)
We then caught a car ferry to Ireland where we drove to the most northern point of Ireland..a place called Malin Head. Again the scenery was beautiful and we decided to take the car on a gravel track and walked about 1km to a magnificent set of cliffs. Ther are very high and sheer, which means they drop straight down into the ocean. It is really scary walking along the edge of them, but the views were breathtaking. I will put some photos up and if you look really carefully you may see Mr Cumming at the top of one and me at the top of another.
Tomorrow we will explore a tiny bit more of Ireland before driving back to Northern Ireland.  Mr Cumming is meeting with 3 different people on Monday in Belfast and then we drive to Dublin (Ireland's capital) to fly back to England where Mr Cumming has a conference as well as a school visit.  On Friday we have to be in Wales to visit another school! PHEW! So 4 countries in 1 week!
I know this is your last week of school, so have a safe holiday and we will see you all next term..
Seeya, Mrs Cumming