Same Shirt, Different day-2012 Adventures of the "Devonport Wonder Babes"

Friday 29^th June Giants Causeway to Larne via various places

Overcast and windy After an enormous Irish Breakfast we said farewell to Sabine and Ulrike ( tho will see them again in Blois in France in about 6 weeks time). Then headed across the road to Giants Causeway our first National Trust visit for the day. Walked down from cliff tops and along to the rock formation which is pretty impressive.

Lyndsay at Giants Causeway

The continued on the Coastal Scenic highway –passed by a Youth Hostel at White Sands that looks like it would be another Poppit Sands, perched high on a cliff top, stopped at another place, Ballintoy, with a small harbour which was once a major exporting site for limestone and paving blocks for many UK cities. This would be really nice place to spend a fine summer day but by then it was raining and blowing gale again. Saw pod of dolphins just off coast here. This was followed by brief stop at a second NT site where there is a Rope Bridge connecting a small island to mainland that has been used for 300 years by salmon fishermen to get out to prime spot when salmon are running. Walked up far enough to get good view of bridge but didn’t stay to walk across bridge as gale blowing across cliffs.

Ballintoy Harbour

Rope Bridge

Then started some ancestor hunting for the rest of the day. My great grandfather, Robert Gaston went to Scotland from the centre of Co Antrim near a town called Rasharkin. The 1911 Irish census shows dozens of Gastons living in Killycowan Road nearby so we found the road ( Google maps comes up with the really obscure little roads that otherwise you would only get on an ordinance survey map) and cruised down it. That’s about as close as we could get to them.

Off to major roads again and headed for Broomhedge, a village near Lisburn on the south western outskirts of Belfast looking for kin of Lyndsay’s great grandfather Phoenix Briggs. In St Matthews Churchyard we found graves of his brothers family but not his parents. We asked a man tending a grave if he knew any Briggs around area, who asked another man across the road, who directed us to Billy Briggs, “in the new red brick bungalow next to the Halfpenny Gate Pub about a mile down the road-just go and knock on the door “, so Lyndsay did and we then spent the next 2 hours there meeting Billy (Lyndsays 3^rd Cousin) and his wife Sylvia and their son and daughter in law, and being plied with tea, sandwiches and cakes and talk. Billy is still living on family land in Broomehedge which is now leased out for grazing and cropping as the chicken farming they used to do was no longer economical after large supermarkets moved in to the area. What a really pleasant evening we had there. Didn’t actually get to Belfast tho.

Lyndsay with Gary and Billy Briggs

Lyndsay with Billy and Sylvia Briggs

Outside Halfpenny Gate Pub

 Then took another hour to drive up to Larne (ferry terminal back to scotland) where we spent night in suprisingly comfortable and quiet hotel ( Curran Court ), suprisingly as only 400 metres from ferry and 100 m from huge ASDA supermarket where huge trucks kept rolling in. Had very sociable visit to supermarket about 9pm for breakfast stuff and basics for next week or so in car.