Day 8, July 6, 2012

Today marked the last day of our epic five day cycling journey across Ireland. It was with a tinge of sadness that I bid farewell to my cycling friends, Paul and Stuart, and Paul's wife, Becky. In the past five days, we rode approximately 270 miles and climbed about 16,000 feet of vertical rise. We had a short ride today since we wanted to act as tourists. We left our B&B in Port Stewart and rode toward the town of Bushmills. Along the way, we stopped at the Dunluce Castle. It's been around since the 14th century and, by the looks of it, I'd say it's seen better days. (It's still pretty impressive though). We then met up as a group and toured the Bushmills Distillery. It's the oldest distillery in the world. I believe it's been in operation for over 400 years. We had a nice lunch at the distillery and then made our way to the Giant's Causeway, which was just a couple of miles away.

The Giant's Causeway is the  top tourist attraction in Northern Ireland. We did a walking tour and got to see hundreds of basaltic columns of various heights. It was truly an impressive sight. Paul and Becky had already seen the Giant's Causeway, so they stayed back and repacked the car with two bikes and all our luggage. That took some doing. We had to partially disassemble the bikes in order to transport them in the car.

We left the Giant's Causeway and drove to the Belfast City Airport where Paul and Becky picked up their rental car. We drove both rental cars to the home of our friends, John and Maisie Duncan, where we unpacked the car and said our final farewells. At this point, you're probably wondering what happened to the third bike and rider. Stuart lives in Northern Ireland not far from the Duncans. He decided to ride a bit further then have his wife drive up and pick him up.

Nancy and I drove to a B&B in Drogheda, Ireland (pronounced Drock-a-duh). We plan to pick up Nancy's parents, George and Grace, at the Dublin Airport in the morning.