Ruins.

The bare bones of Pyke and ruins of Dunluce.

Today had a lot of work to do to live up to the excitement of yesterday. I marched through it in a haze of exhaustion, but we managed to see a lot of things in a short time.

Our first stop of the day (aside from the grocery store to stock up on water) was Binevenagh, a huge cliff overlooking the northwest coast of Northern Ireland and another filming location.

The views were absolutely incredible. We could see over to Derry and down into the lake. There were noticeable areas of flooding, which we found out were from last night’s crazy thunderstorm.

Unreal.

Scotland is out there somewhere.

The filming location was pretty easy to spot. This was the Dothraki Sea, where Drogon flew Daenerys Targaryen after rescuing her from the fighting pits of Meereen in season five.

“Drogon? Can you take me back to Meereen?”

We took in a few more views as we made our way along the cliff’s edge. We both got as close as we were willing to the edge with the brutal winds blowing. I have no idea how tiny Emilia Clarke was able to stand up there and not blow away.

Even mountain walks require coffee.

I’ve always been small, but I’ve never felt as small as I did at the edge of this cliff.

We found the main viewpoint and I noticed that we could see the area where Jorah Mormont and Daario Naharis rode through on their search for Daenerys in season six.

“I want to see what the world looks like when she’s done conquering it.”

I got curious about whether or not I would be able to find the more elusive filming location here, but it was near that spot so I kept my eyes open. I was able to find this!

“Not an army. A horde.”

That dark green ring is where new grass was grown after the Dothraki and their horses rode a circle around Daenerys to capture her. We had trouble finding a way to get down to it, but just seeing it from above was really cool.

I also saw this caterpillar. He was pretty cool too.

He might have been dead.

Dad really wanted to go for a hike, which we thought we would be doing instead of driving straight to the summit of Binevenagh. We did find a trail that went through the woods and brought us out to where we were hoping to get to.

It doesn’t seem as big from the ground.

Daenerys dropped her ring in this ring.

We got a better view of the ring on the ground and got to the cattle portion of our walk. We were used to walking around with sheep at this point, but we found a sign that gave us pause.

The scariest sign I’ve ever seen.

We crept along, keeping an eye out for cows, but instead we ran into our first Irish horses.

My new best friend.

After a bit of watching each other, the horses and I both approached the fence and nervously reached out to each other. They reached their noses, I reached my hand. I touched one for a moment and we both realized we were both terrified of one another. We parted amicably and Dad and I wandered back to the car to find lunch.

We got to Owen’s Bar in Limavady and found another door.

Winter is here

Unfortunately (for me), Owen’s doesn’t serve food. Dad got a beer and we hung around in a real Irish pub with some real Irishmen for a bit before deciding to skip lunch and get on with the rest of our day.

On our way to our next place, we stopped at Gortmore Viewpoint. We saw the statue of Manannan Mac Lir, the Irish sea god. The statue was a new one, carved by a man who works on Game of Thrones, after the old statue was kidnapped and damaged.

Praise the sea.

Look at the brand new face on that brand new statue.

Mussenden Temple was next on our agenda and we ended up walking around the Downhill Demesne as well. An old Irish baron had all the buildings on the property built, but they fell into disrepair at some point around World War II.

I bet this house was nice once.

At least this wall isn’t completely destroyed.

We walked through the ruined house to reach the Temple and checked out the views from the windows inside. It was originally intended to be a library, but has just become an attraction.

I would certainly read in this library.

Lovely brick walls.

The view of Downhill Strand from the window.

The brick domed ceiling.

My next stop was Downhill Strand, the beach on which Melisandre burned the statues of the Seven. Mussenden Temple was visible from the area, as was a train tunnel, but both were covered with a CGI Dragonstone.

“The night is dark and full of terrors.”

That tiny temple became a massive fortress.

This was the second Irish beach we had been to and the weather was much nicer, so I took a couple pictures of the huge stretch of sand.

The tide was barely out. It’s just that big.

A couple of thunderstorms over the ocean.

Beach parking appears to literally be beach parking.

Our tickets for Mussenden Temple gave us free admission into an old farming cottage called Hezzet House and Dad wanted to stop by on the way to our last destination of the day.

A little old farm house that has been here for centuries.

A tiny bed for a tiny house.

The room where work happened.

We finally made it to our last stop: Dunluce Castle. I fell asleep in the car and apparently had my elbow on the window control because it had gone down while Dad was driving.

The castle was our second ruin of the day and it was pretty incredible. There used to be more buildings in the back of the castle, but they fell off into the ocean after storms in the 1600s. The ruins formed the barebones basis for the CGI Greyjoy castle of Pyke.

The bare bones of Pyke and ruins of Dunluce.

The main entrance.

The old southeast tower.

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The main house.

 

The inner ward, with surrounding ruins.

The inner ward, with ocean view.

We took in the views from the ruins before heading home for an early end to the day.

The coastal cliffs of Dunluce.

We barely noticed that arch, but it made for a great photo.

After yesterday’s long trip, we were exhausted all day and have been taking advantage of some time to relax. Tomorrow, we cross the border.

The North Coast.

Thor had other things on his mind in take one.

I don’t have anything clever to start this off with. This was just one of the best days of my life.

Today was a busy day. We planned on visiting all of the Game of Thrones filming locations around the northeast coast of the country, as well as stopping at the two most popular tourist attractions here, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and Giant’s Causeway.

We left at 8 in the morning and our first stop was the Dark Hedges. Arya Stark and Brienne of Tarth both travel here down the Kingsroad in seasons two and four, respectively. The trees on this road lean over to create a sort of canopy and they were pretty incredible to look at.

“What do you say, just you and me on the Kingsroad? Swords at our sides, couple of tavern wenches to warm our beds tonight.”

The view wasn’t even the most incredible part in the end. We walked down the road and heard a shout instructing us to stand behind a tree for a moment. We did and then continued on our way to the source of the shout. We encountered a group of people wearing northern style cloaks and two huskies. The owner of the dogs explained to us that he was with the Castle Ward Winterfell group and they were doing a promotional photoshoot with the dogs for a local cancer charity.

The dogs, Thor and Odin, were revealed to us to be the dogs that played Summer, Bran’s direwolf, and Grey Wind, Robb’s direwolf, in season one before they became real wolves. The man also told us that he was once a Dothraki Slave Master extra in the show, his three sons were wildling extras, and one of their cousins was a septa that helped prepare Cersei for her walk of atonement.

It’s not every day that you meet a Dothraki Slave Master.

As compensation for disrupting our walk, we were given the opportunity to take a picture with Summer and Grey Wind–I mean, Odin and Thor. Since they’re dogs, we obviously had to do a couple takes.

Thor had other things on his mind in take one.

Better. I had Summer (Odin) and Dad had Grey Wind (Thor).

Normally, this costs a lot of extra money with another package at Winterfell so we were extremely luck to have ran into these guys. Thor and Odin were the baby direwolves that the Starks found in the very first episode of the show and now they’re all grown up!

After our chance encounter with the wolves, we made our way back down the road to Gracehill House, which had another door to check out. Turns out, it was closed and we only saw the door because we wandered in while it was open for people to clean.

I’m the three-eyed raven now.

Our next stop was the Caves of Cushendun. As we got higher in elevation and closer to the coast, a thick fog set in. When I say thick, I mean thick. We could barely see five feet in front of us.

Looks more like The Mist than Game of Thrones.

The treacherous drive eventually brought us to the caves, where Melisandre gave birth to a shadow with the face of Stannis Baratheon. We found the gate where they stopped to let the birth happen and the shore where Davos smuggled the Red Woman in, along with the wall he huddled in fear against.

The fog tried to stop us, but we prevailed.

Another informative sign for the aphantasia-afflicted.

 

“Shadows cannot live in the dark, Ser Davos. They are servants of light. The children of fire. And the brighter the flames, the darker they are.”

The Lord of Light didn’t bother me here.

Davos had the right idea hiding here.

Poor Onion Knight had no idea what he was getting into.

After the cave, we tried to head over to Mary McBride’s to see another door and get lunch. Unfortunately, we got way ahead of schedule and were too early for lunch. We couldn’t wait for the pub to open, so instead we saw this goat statue.

This one’s for you, Mom.

Dad got a coffee across the street from the pub and we headed to our next stop: Murlough Bay.

The fog cleared up just a tiny bit on our way to the bay, but we ran into another obstacle. Cows. A lot of them. Just hanging out. We considered trying to drive by them and move them off the road, but we spotted a bull up ahead and decided maybe we could come back later!

Really poor display of manners.

We skipped that stop for now and moved over to Fair Head. The fog was getting thicker at this point and we had no clue where we were going. We wondered around the gravel path for a while, encountered more cows and some flocks of sheep, and eventually came to this.

This was a terrifying 100-meter drop.

That’s a cliff. It looks like the end of the world. We carefully made our way to the main part of the walk and then turned back to walk the perimeter of the cliffs.

I’ve never seen this much fog.

The ocean SHOULD be down there.

I had a heart attack everytime he got near a cliff.

Views of Scotland were not available.

When we turned back, we noticed that the fog was clearing slightly to our left and we spotted what looked like a dragon on the lake.

Drogon? Is that you?

Literally two minutes later, that same view looked like this.

Not Drogon. Just some dragon-like trees.

The fog was completely gone. It had turned into a beautiful day, so we got some better views of the ocean and Rathlin across the water. We walked on and managed to find the spot where Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister brooded together.

“The dead are coming for us all.”

“Why don’t you figure out what to do about my missing fleet and murdered allies and I’ll figure out what to do about your walking dead men.”

I even got in on the brooding action.

I think we also found the place where Jon touched Drogon for the first time, but there were a lot of places that looked exactly like this.

Imagine a giant Dragonstone back there.

When we were finished at Fair Head, we made our way back to Murlough Bay and made it through the cow parade.

They got a bit politer.

We found the path that Theon Greyjoy rode to Pyke with his sister (unbeknownst to him) Yara in season 2.

This distinctive tree stands out behind their horse.

Turns out a lot of the rocks in this scene were CGI.

We found the rock that Davos was stranded on after Blackwater.

“I was in the battle. At Blackwater. I was a captain and a knight.”

And I found the gem of this location, after a very extensive search. My goal was to find the place where Stannis and Renly Baratheon had their parley, but it looked out of reach.

This sign was actually quite helpful.

I tried to find a spot along the road that lined up with a photo I had, but then I realized that to get above the tree line, they needed to be on the other side of the road. I climbed a giant hill, slipped down another hill and landed real hard on my butt, and had to sneak past some cows, but I found it.

“Born admist salt and smoke? What, is he a ham?”

“The Iron Throne is mine, by right. All those who deny that are my foes.”

The bay itself was pretty beautiful, too.

One of my favorite views.

Leaving with a feeling of accomplishment, we made our way to the Rope Bridge, bought our tickets, and headed to Fullerton Arms for our first and only meal of the day and another door. The place even had a dedicated Thrones room. It was wonderful.

Fire and blood.

The Baratheon colors are backwards, but that’s ok,

The low budget throne is incredible.

I had a chicken stack, which is apparently just a piece of grilled chicken on top of mashed potatoes. We had to eat absurdly fast in order to do the Rope Bridge and get to Giant’s Causeway before our ticket time ran out. Risking indigestion, I wolfed that chicken stack down and we hit the road again.

While Dad parked, I ran down to the overflow parking lot, which is actually Larrybane Quarry. The quarry was used as Renly’s camp in season two.

Loras Tyrell, star of multiple informative posters

“My son is fighting a war, not playing at one!”

“But there can be only one champion! Brienne of Tarth, you may ask anything of me you desire.”

Nearby the quarry was a little area that was another one of my goals to find: the Ironborn’s Kingsmoot location. It looks a little different in the show because of better camera angles and some additional grass to cover up cement, but I’m glad I found it.

“We speak in the presence of the Drowned God. In his name, we gather today to choose a new king as our new leader.”

“I am Yara Greyjoy, daughter of Balon Greyjoy, King of the Iron Islands. I claim the Salt Throne.”

“I’m Euron Greyjoy and I claim the Salt Throne!”

I finished my hunting and headed back up to the Rope Bridge. It started sprinkling a little, but we managed to get across, look around, and get back before the bad stuff started happening.

The weather cooperated for an hour at least.

The aforementioned bad stuff happened as soon as we finished. On our way to Giant’s Causeway, the skies opened up. We got absolutely drenched while checking out the Causeway. It’s an amazing place, but it would’ve been better if I wasn’t soaked down to my underwear.

Finn McCool did seem pretty cool.

This was TREACHEROUS in the rain.

The Wishing Seat.

The Giant’s Gate.

After the Causeway, we hit our last stop of the day in the middle of a thunderstorm. Dad waited in the car (well deserved after his excellent display of driving) while I braved the weather one final time to see Ballintoy Harbor, which was turned into Lordsport for Theon’s return to the Iron Islands.

SO MANY SIGNS.

“What’s she carrying?”

I also found the location of both Theon and Euron’s baptisms, but the tide was too high for it to look exactly the same.

“What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.”

I found the beach where Balon Greyjoy was buried at sea, but it was too far away and I didn’t want to walk there in the thunderstorm. Instead I took a distance pic.

Whoever invented camera zoom is a genius.

 

Our incredible day ended with a drink at the hotel bar and a couple of gluten free jaffa cakes for myself. Tomorrow is our last night in Coleraine and the day is packed with filming locations again. Sleep is very much needed.

Research.

Dad had a lot of work to do today between research and driving. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Today was a pretty slow day. We were moving up from Belfast to Coleraine in the north and needed to work an hour drive into our schedule. Before we left town, Dad wanted to make a stop at the General Registry Office of Northern Ireland (also known as GRONI) and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (also known as PRONI). He had a few ancestors that he wanted to find some more information about.

At GRONI, we found the death records of some of our ancestors that hadn’t had them listed. We had to search through a bunch of John Pyper’s to find the one we were related to and discovered that he was actually born five or so years earlier than Dad had listed. We also saw that one of our male ancestors died from a two-week long case of pneumonia and his wife died later on from a cerebral hemorrhage. Dad told me that that’s what a stroke is, but I like to think of it better as a brain explosion.

We stopped to do some souvenir shopping for my best buddy at home and then grabbed lunch at Zizzi’s Pizza for the second time this week. I got beef and venison ragu pasta and it was alright. I’ve had vension twice this week, but it was mixed with beef so I’m still not quite sure what it tastes like.

We also FINALLY found The Dark Horse, which is apparently actually a coffee house and not a bar. We discovered that we had actually walked right by it everytime we went looking for it. Great.

The coffee bar, a wild place.

We saw another of the ten carved doors, with this one depicting the end of the Faith and House Tyrell in the Great Sept. The Stark and Targaryen sigils are in the bottom corners as well, alluding to Jon Snow’s parents.

And now the rains weep o’er their halls, with not a soul to hear…

PRONI was our next stop and we had to get official ID’s made up and everything. We went through some film things of old record books and found marriage records for some of our ancestors. They have a collection of yearly books of wills there as well, but the entire decade of the 1930s was not there, which is exactly what we were looking for. We headed out and got ready to hit the road.

PRONI is like half a cafe.

On the ride to Coleraine, I tried out some potato chips that had roast beef and mustard flavoring. I was a little afraid to try them, but they were actually not bad. Some of them were a little too mustardy, but they were certainly edible.

After the drive, we checked into our hotel and found a grocery store nearby to grab some snacks for a couple big drives coming up. We managed to find a gluten free baked snacks section. I picked up some cherry bakewells, lemoncakes, jam tarts, and Jaffa cakes. Dad got the thing he deemed most similar to Fig Newtons.

Our final stop of the day was Portstewart Strand, which was the filming location for Jaime Lannister and Bronn’s arrival in Dorne. We climbed up on the dunes to see if we could find the place where fought the Dornish guards, but everything looked pretty similar up there.

Jaime and Bronn were probably here. Probably.

We were able to pick out the spot where the Sand Snakes made camp in season five and planned to kidnap Myrcella Baratheon as revenge for the death of Oberyn Martell.

“Queen Cersei loves her children, and we have one of them.”

Portstewart itself is a cute little seaside town, though I found myself wondering what else there is to do around here for the citizens. I imagine a lot of them are only summer residents, but still. There’s not much around besides the beach.

A lovely little seaside town.

After the dunes, we stopped by Harry’s Shack to try to grab dinner. The two hour wait was not worth it, so we walked back along the coast and drove over to The New York Bar Grill. I tried another kind of cider, but apparently this brand has five milligrams of gluten in it. I don’t think that’s enough to cause a reaction, but I didn’t want to risk it so I gave it back and they were nice enough to take it off our bill.

I had a steak with some mashed potatoes and Dad had a Bronx burger, which was supposed to have bacon on it. Bacon to them was apparently just a slice of ham. We went back to the hotel after dinner and watched last night’s Game of Thrones. Dang.

Tomorrow is our biggest driving day until we leave for Dublin, so we need to get some sleep now. Big things are coming.