With the
Easter school holidays providing us with a few more opportunities to
explore, we embraced life and depart ed on our second sea voyage of
2014.
This
involved driving the 20min to Troon harbour and boarding a ferry to
take us across the Irish Seas!! The 2 hour journey went plain
sailing(!!) and we arrived just after lunch time in Larne, Northern
Ireland.
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| Emerald Isle |
The purpose of our short weekend adventure, was to present
God's amazing handiwork to the children...the Giant's Causeway.
The
Giant's Causeway is a geological wonder steeped in legend and
folklore. The 40 000 interlocking basalt columns is the result of
intense volcanic activity, of cooling and shrinking of successive
lava flows which happened 60 million years ago.....or did it???
With
these extraordinary hexagon shaped rocks you can expect some Irish
myth and legends will be carved into the culture of a nation.
Here is
Thomas's account of the story behind the Giant's Causeway:
The Myth Of The Giants
Causeway
Finn McCool is a great Irish
giant. Now he had millions of fights with a Scottish giant called
Benadonner. Though they got nowhere near each other because they were
on different islands.
One day Finn had had enough
fights with Benadonner, so Finn built the Causeway to get to the
isle of Staffa. When Finn got there he got the fright of his life
Benadonner was huge then Finn ran back across to Ireland but
Benadonner just spotted him and chased him over the Causeway, but
while Finn was running away he lost his shoe.
When Finn got home he told
his wife about Benadonner. Then his wife gave him the baby toy and
said “ act as a baby”.So when Benadonner came to their house
Finn's wife welcomed him in and said “Finn is out hunting”. Then
Benadonner heard a wailing sound. Now Benadonner is very nosy and
peered trough the curtains and thought if the baby is that big the
dad is even bigger. So he ran away crushing the Causeway behind him.
We were
blessed to stay in the caravan of the Well's family between Port Rush
and Port Steward and doubly blessed with Julie and Adrian who joined
us in their homeland, for the weekend.
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| With Julie and Adrian Wells |
Arno secretly organised the
babysitters and I was taken out for my birthday dinner to the
legendary Ice Box Restaurant in Port Steward. As we were sitting at
our cozy table, overlooking the North Seas, we again wondered why we
had never been in this beautiful place before??
Reflecting
on our 14 years in the UK, we were reminded of all the wonderful
places we have seen...and how there is a time and a place for
everything. Not to think to much about lost opportunities and moments
that are no more.... but focussing on soaking up the moment and
enjoying it!! And that is just what we did!!!
All too
soon we were woken up by the alarm clock on Monday morning(5am) to
catch our ferry back. Yes, my birthday this year...had two more hours
added to it!!! Yay....
Short
and sweet was our wee visit to Ireland and awesome to have witnessed
nature's gift to us.
Easter
holidays were far from over... we had the lovely
McPhail-family-of-six-from-Ceres to stay for the actually easter
weekend. We have known these guys since 2002. Felt so privilege to
have shared many of life's moments with them. We are always encourage
by their faith and strength and their creative ways of pursuit in an
eco friendly lifestyle. Luckily we will meet them one last time at
Port Ban before we depart, so at least this good bye was not THAT
final yet!!
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| With Stephen, Leigh, Ben, Iona and twins Noah and Oran |
A flying
visit to Hadrian's wall was next on the agenda....carpe diem. We are
totally take control of every minute!! WE've made the final decision
to go, round 3pm and by 5pm the car was packed(with all our camping
gear, kids and dog) ready to roll. Beside exploring this ancient
Roman stronghold, we also wanted to give our new 4-man VANGO
lightweight travel tent a wee practice run. (We tried to pitch it
inside the living room in January, but this tent actually needs pegs
to hold it all in position, so that was a bit of a challenge....!!)
It was
still light when we got to Herding Hill Farm campsite, just outside Haltwhistle. Pitching a tent for the first
time is always a bit of a challenge, but we did ourselves proud and
all the guide ropes were secured before darkness!!
Luckily
we've packed the dawn sleeping bags.... we needed them. It was COLD.
Arno and Alana did an awesome job of getting our meat barbecued, but
we just gobbled it up quickly and then got ourselves wrapped up
inside.
Tent
feedback – fantastic. All 6 of us had a good sleep, not squashed
and just perfect for taking with us on a trip around the world!!! The
tent has a rather big porch area which was so good to prepare the
breakfast in, preventing those crumbs and lost cornflakes from
finding a way into our sleeping bags....At 8kg in weight for all of
that, mama is smiling!!
The
campsite was so lovely!! I will totally recommend staying there. Even
if you own a caravan or just want to relax in a bunkhouse with
friends (do not forget the tee-pees, some with jacuzzi...), there is
a option for your style of doing the outdoors your way!! Wonderful
kids play are and beautiful country side walks. We were really
disappointed that we did not have more time to spent in this amazing
place.
We were
blown away by Hadrian's wall it self. 2000 year ago an imposing Roman
Army were marching along this 73-mile long frontier. This used to be
the northern edge of this powerful Roman Empire. The first stone was
laid in 127AD and took round 6 years to complete, so that made this
wall dates from the time of Christ's time on earth!!! Wow. That's
perspective for you. Each of the 17 forts housed round about 600
soldiers.Although
many sections of the wall does not exits today anymore, there are
awesome very well preserved sections. We explore the section between
the Birdoswald Roman Fort and the Housesteads Roman Fort.
There
are many different theories why this wall was built; to keep the
Empire protected from
the barbarians form the north, or to reflect the
power of Rome, and was used as a political point by Hadrian (Emperor
who instructed the built) After
Hadrian's death in 138, the new emperor, Antoninus
Pius
essentially abandoned the wall. The
region near the wall remained peaceful for most of the rest of the
3rd century. It is thought that some in the garrison may have married
and integrated into the local community throughout the years. In time
the wall was abandoned and fell into ruin. Over the centuries the
stone was reused in other local buildings.Hadrian's Wall was declared
a World
Heritage Site
in 1987.
We
were really so blessed with this opportunity to experience and
present this ancient history and magnificent creation to our
children.
Easter
2014 = basket filled with memories!!!!
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