Cushendall and Cushendun

I used to get the nearby towns of Cushendall and Cushendun confused, but since we stayed overnight in Cushendall this time it’s now easier to remember. Cushendall is much larger (still charming and small though!) and after our night watching the World Cup match in the pub, we got up the next morning for a lovely breakfast at our B&B and then set out to explore the area a bit. We took a walk out of Cushendall toward the coast and then took a small, marked trail up to an old church and graveyard. It was picturesque in its ramshackle returning-to-nature way, and lots of the headstones talked of people who were lost at sea.

There were very nice views of the harbor, especially on the way back.

Walking back into town you can see the big hill on the other side of Cushendall.

This sign shows hurling players, and there were other Irish sports murals in town. I think our black cab tour driver would have pointed out that’s a clue about the makeup of the town’s population!

We then drove north a short distance to Cushendun. There started some real silliness, with Liam dressing up as me (Hey, I don’t stand or smile like that!)

Cushendun honors Johann, the last animal culled in the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001.

Then somehow, even without an official tour or fantasy costumes, we found another Game of Thrones site. At the end of the harbor there’s a cave, the specific cave in which Melisandre gave birth to the smoke monster. Sound weird? Yeah, it was. The cave was cool, and we met a geologist there who lamented that “that program” was bringing a lot of traffic to the cave, which is apparently full of very cool fossils.