Healing Travels: 40 Days for Peace: Ireland's Northern Coastline: day 36

19 July Sunday

Mackenzie and I stayed a wee bit longer talking with Carole in the morning over breakfast since everyone else had vacated the house. She really is a wonderful, sweet, lovely woman and I'd love to spend time with her again.

Our first stop was the bakery that her husband works in "Pappy's Bakery" outside of Ballymoney, where we met his brother and a few other people who seemed to know all about us! I guess in a small town nothing is hidden! We grabbed some of the best donuts we'd ever tasted: A sugar donut sliced in half and spread with jam and cream and topped with chocolate! Oh, my word! So good! Don't judge!

We drove on toward Kinbae on the coast to pick up the Ireland Northern Coastal Road. This place is off the tourist trail and we were able to climb 200 steps down a steep mountain to the old castle ruins. We climbed all over the cliffs that jetted out to the ocean. Mackenzie scaring me a wee bit at one point. (That's okay, because I KNOW I've scared her as well.)

We continued to drive this beautiful route and were able to see two other 'Game of Thrones' sites including Cushendun, to visit the caves in the second season. After a while we became hungry so we just ate the usual lunch: peanuts, oranges, and apples. We stopped alongside a beautiful area and parked in in front of the ocean and took an hour nap in our car listening to the waves roll up on the shore.It just felt right.

We awoke and headed to Carrickfergus to eat dinner at the 'The Swift' where we dined on fish pie and mussels. The fish pie was actually a creamy fish stew with cod, salmon, carrots, beans, and brocolli. Honestly we were so excited to get some greens that we fought over the brocolli, almost ignoring the mashed potatoes on top. But, as I've said, Irish potatoes are amazing! We climbed around Carrickfergus Castle where in 1318, Robert the Bruce attacked.

Time to head to Belfast where we are staying with a young family. Susanne is our contact person and she greated us with the usual, "I'll make you some tea"...although in this instance we made it ourselves. Her house is sweet and on a little side road in a nice part of Belfast that actually looks like it might have been a very prosperous part at one time. We crashed for a while in the living room drinking tea and then took a 2 mile walk around the neighborhood before returning. Mackenzie spied a Starbuck's and almost cried, although the Caffe Nero's in Great Britain is better and we pegged that for tomorrow's coffee stop.