Northern Ireland by Tandem

6th-17th September 2010

A tour from Antrim to Inishowen with visits to Rathlin Island and Giants Causeway

 
 

We planned a mainly coastal trip from Larne, just north of Belfast anticlockwise along the north coast, to include a night on Rathlin Island and a day walking along the Causeway Coastal path. The first six days provided mainly good cycling weather: mid-teens temperatures by day but cooler at night and there was one deluge. But every one of these days was fine enough for a picnic lunch in an attractive spot.

We crossed Lough Foyle by ferry from Magilligan point to Greencastle, intending to tour the Inishowen coast, ending up in Derry. But the weather forecast specified big winds and heavy rain, so we spent two nights in Clonmany and another two in Derry. We planned to ride from Derry to Larne, but as the wind was still very strong, we took a train most of the way.

We stayed in B and Bs every night of our trip, eating out in restaurants and bars on most evenings.

 

We used Virgin trains to travel between London and Glasgow, the P & O ferry between Troon and Larne and another ferry across Lough Foyle.

  1. •The pages of this travel blog are organised by days with a photo gallery/slide show on each page below some text describing the day’s ride. Use the Next button to move forward a day or the navigation bar at the top to jump to a page.

  2. •Click on the blue lines on the maps for details about the daily routes (including GPS log files in case you want to use them in your GPS) and on the red icons for links to the places we stayed.

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Chimney Tops Point on the Giant’s Causeway coastal path

Near South Point on Rathlin Island