{"id":4788,"date":"2025-01-21T18:58:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T18:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/?page_id=4788"},"modified":"2025-01-22T08:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T08:09:56","slug":"ballintoy-to-ballycastle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/ulster\/ballintoy-to-ballycastle\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballintoy to Ballycastle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

21st January 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloody cold start today. As soon as I moved under the shadow of the cliffs at Carrick-a-rede the wind picked up and didn’t stop all day. The chill took temp down to zero and a lot of this trek was open road with no shelter.
How different things are from the last time I was here. The approach to the bridge is now from the west and is a 1k walk to and from the entrance. The old entrance seemed usuable but I got 1\/2k up the path to find it blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Look at that lovely sunshine down by Ballintoy Harbour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Down to the bridge. I’m not sure why I’m doing this, I’m certainly not paying to go across. F but it is cold. Rathlin in sunshine also.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Strange it is that in just this bit between Ballycastle and Dunserverick, the underlying limestone is the landscape. East and west is the basalt that forms the Causeway etc,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The misty headlands towards Fairhead that we mostly bypass because the landowners don’t want us plebs tramping over their grass.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Heading back up. A shot of the bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Nothing for miles but a narrow tarmac road and a lonely horse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Perhaps I missed the one that said, ‘Speed Up! Grey Squirrels.’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Have you seen our mate? Come on son! It’s too f ing cold to be pratting about. Where is he?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More tarmac miles but at least it is a little warmer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Who drills a hole in their menhir? Goes all the way through.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Humping buckets of water all day then some asswipe smashed it. I think I’ll just rest here a minute.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ballycastle down in the valley. Remember though, it’s farther than it looks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The sheep are all running towards me and not a leaf of lettuce on my person.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The harbour. Everywhere is closed so no late lunch. I’ll just have to try for a early dinner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was a guy moaning on the WalkNI website about this section – must have been one of those soapflakes you hear about. ‘Do not do this section. Danger!’ What a knob. I found it quite relaxing although as always I’m not fond of the repetitive surfaces.
Onwards. The big one tomorrow and a small test to see if I am still remotely capable of a 10 dayer in the sunny climes of the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21st January 2025 Bloody cold start today. As soon as I moved under the shadow of the cliffs at Carrick-a-rede the wind picked up and didn’t stop all day. The chill took temp down to zero and a lot of this trek was open road with no shelter. How different things are from the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":661,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4788","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4788"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4797,"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4788\/revisions\/4797"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/picton-lynas.co.uk\/walkingblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}