Reflections regarding Thursday August 1, 2024 in Castle Rock & Giant's Causway, Northern Ireland
Exhausted from our previous travels and late nights, we let the boys sleep in until 9am and intentionally started our day slowly. We drove to The Dark Hedges, an impressive line of 200-year-old beech trees that hangover the entrance road to the Stuart family’s former mansion. More recently, this area was used to create the backdrop for Kingsroad in GOT – a dark and hostile woods in the show. As we walked along, the boys enjoyed taking pictures that played with shadows and light, mooing at the cows a few hundred feet away, playing pareidolia with the trees, and climbing all the trees that they could. I was grateful we were there during daylight. It was easy to see how creepy they would have been at night. Eventually, someone had to pee, again, so we turned around and walked quickly back to the restaurant situated near the entrance.
Next, we went to Dunluce Castle where Chaim and I enjoyed walking around the ruins while the boys found places to either “sleep” or pretend they were in a dungeon. The castle was built onto the side of a cliff with, at least, a 200ft drop into the water below. Peering down, the seaweed (or at least I think that’s what I was looking at) looked like a sea of mermaid hair swirling in the sea. Chaim and I were eager to keep exploring, but the boys were spent. My goal was to make it to the Giant’s Causeway before dark so off to ice cream we went in the hopes of re-energizing the boys before a decent hike with a steep climb at the end.
We might have gotten too much ice cream. Eitan’s and Shai’s stomachs hurt. Before we could continue our adventure, we had to find a toilet. Since none of the local shops has a toilet, we walked to the public toilets in the car park. About twenty minutes later, we drove to a different car park that was closer to the Giant’s Causeway and wouldn’t cost us an arm and a leg. As you might have guessed, we headed straight for the toilets before starting on our hike.
As soon as we started our hike, the boys began complaining about how much they had to walk. To be fair, they had walked a ton in the last week. Honestly though, they only complained about how tired their legs are when they have to walk. Magically, their fatigue disappears when they are able to run and climb. This was the case with the Giant’s Causeway. About five minutes into the hike I spotted really neat, black rock formations that looked like they would be great to climb. I encouraged my children to walk along the rocks to touch the water, but they were better citizens than I and reminded me that this particular area was not for walking through. A few minutes later we were at the beginning of the Giant’s Causeway. Black, basalt rocks were everywhere along the shore and glorious hexagonal columns began appearing everywhere. Again, I tried to encourage the boys to walk and climb along the rocks and try to touch the water. They refused, so I started the risk-taking adventure. The boys fretted as I climbed my way over the rocks, carefully avoiding small and very large pools of water along the way. They called out to me, “Mommy, you’re going to fall in!” and “Ima, what if you fall in?” It was important to me that I show them what it means to take a calculated risk. I called back, “I know my body and am confident that this is something I can do.” Chaim reinforced this by saying, “Mommy knows what she’s doing.”
As I reached the shore, I noted that some of the waves crashing into the rocks were larger than I expected and could soak my lower half with ease. Of course, just as I was turning to go a larger than average wave crashed into the rocks right where I was standing. I was soaked from knees to toes. I could have been annoyed. Instead, I was delighted. That singular moment inspired my children to want to “brave” the rocks and see if they could touch the water without getting soaked. Unfailingly, everyone ended up soaked either by wave or giant puddle, and then laughed gleefully as they scrambled over the rocks to get to dryer land. Afterward, I explained that it is okay to take a calculated risk when you know your own limits and are still careful while taking the risk.
Realizing they had a vast natural playground to scamper and climb on, the boys went in various directions to test their abilities. Amichai and Eitan flexed their bouldering muscles (so did I!) while Shai and Matanel focused on climbing from column to column. I think we could have spent all day there. At one point, I heard Amichai say, “If I’m good at something, it’s climbing!” He was having the time of his life, and it was a joy to see him in his element. A few minutes later, I reminded Amichai and Eitan that they didn’t need to rush through and could take their time at this once in a lifetime opportunity. Almost immediately, Amichai said, “I’m going to bring my children here, if they’re active.” There is so much to unpack in that tiny sentence!
After about two hours of climbing around, Chaim and I each attempted climbing to the top of a singular column without the use of any other nearby rocks. Success! Given our age and numerous sports injuries we were very pleased with ourselves (and perhaps silently grateful that we “only” had time to climb that one column.)
As we hiked our way up and out the complaining began again. There were SO MANY STAIRS. Complaints included, “My legs are dying; I’m dying” (Amichai), “What?! There are more stairs?! You’ve got to be kidding me!” (Matanel), “Who thought this was a good idea?” (Eitan), and my all time favorite “Do we have to leave?” (Shai). In addition to the never-ending (and very steep) stairs, there were thousands of flies that surrounded us. They were so bad that many of them landed in Eitan’s hair and Amichai ended up accidentally swallowing two of them when he tried talking! In an homage to my parents and a long-ago camping trip, I smiled and yelled back, “It’s okay. You need the protein!”
Finally, we made our way back to the car park where all of us agreed that we would love to return one day and spend even more time at the Giant's Causeway. We finished the night with a home cooked meal of salmon, stir fried vegetables and rice (all made in my 6in camping pan and pot), Israeli salad for Eitan, cucumber and pepper salad for Matanel, cut up veggies and scrambled eggs for Shai and Amichai. To my delight, everyone ate beautifully! There wasn’t a single crumb to be found.
