Giant's Causeway

I am visiting my friends Cat (whom I know from high school) and Christy (her husband) at their home not far from Belfast. Generally I'm an easygoing traveller, happy to go along with other people's plans, but there was one sight I insisted on seeing on this trip: the Giant's Causeway on the Antrim Coast. I'd been to Northern Ireland once before--ten years ago this year!--on a backpacking trip, and had planned to visit this peculiar rock formation then, but I'd gotten ill and scotched the idea. There'd be none of that this time!
Cat, Christy and I set out on a whole-day expedition--not just to the Causeway but to Dunluce Castle (a majestic ruin on the cliffs which my friend Desiree had recommended I see) and the beach at Ballycastle (where Christy had gone many a summer whilst growing up). I was completely dumbstruck by Dunluce, it was just so gorgeous and wild. Mighty waves crashing against rocks below sheer cliffs, a roofless manor house and loggia and battlements, a sign describing an outer wall that had slid into the sea.
Fortified with salt and vinegar crisps, we headed next to the Giant's Causeway. Christy asked if I'd heard the legend of its formation. I had, but I'd forgotten key details.
"There's this Irish giant and this Scottish giant who decide to get together to fight," he began. Apparently they'd never met before--perhaps they'd just shouted insults back and forth, as Scotland and this bit of Northern Ireland are only, what, 37 km removed at this point. "So they start building a causeway so they can meet in the middle to battle it out." But then the Irish giant catches a glimpse of the Scottish giant--Christy used a colorful colloquialism to describe the terror the Irish giant felt at this point-and he hurriedly retreats. "Back home, the Irish giant dresses up in baby clothes and gets in a baby carriage sized to fit him. The Scottish giant meanwhile is angry he didn't get to scrap, and he comes looking for the Irish giant--" and finds instead what he takes to be the Irish giant's not-so-wee bairn. "He thinks, 'if that's his baby...!' and he runs back home, destroying the causeway as he goes."
All this Cat and Christy and I talked about on the long slanting road down to the Causeway. Christy also said that, though he himself thought the legend was a sufficient explanation for the stones, "naysayers" had formed a theory about a volcanic eruption some 60 million years back when basalt had rapidly cooled in the water. The expansion and contraction of rock made it take hexagonal shapes for reasons I've read about on the Wiki page but don't quite understand. "But the evidence in favor of the legend is that there are similar formations on the Scottish side," Christy pointed out.
Once we actually reached the Led Zeppelin album cover, I again felt overcome by how extraordinary it was. It's always fun to go stepping from stone to stone on a shoreline--multiply that by the surreality of the stones being hexagonal, and at all different heights, and some of them loose. "D'you have good health insurance?" Christy wanted to know. I laughed but started stepping more carefully, though I still found myself drawn to go as far out toward the sea as I could. Most people were scrambling up a ledge flanked by long columns of these rocks, but this was closer to the shore. There was a wide shelf of black rock (the inner rocks were brown) that was lonelier. I headed that way. My path would be blocked by small pools of water or boulders, but I found ways through. I didn't see where Cat and Christy went.
I found what seemed to be a good outpost--not too close to the crashing waves, not too close to the shoreline--and sat on a rock. I wasn't content there long, though. I soon noticed that, since the hexagons were all different heights, a natural high-backed chair was right beside me. I slid into it gratefully. It was even tilted back a little--a natural Barcalounger. Perfect. Mysterious stones and great green cliffs and wheeling seagulls and the roar of the sea. Happiness.
I watched the waves as they smashed into the rocks and broke into spouts of spray. I felt like I could have watched this for hours and hours. Just a few minutes in, though, I heard a deeper roar and saw a bigger wave approach. Wow, I thought. I wonder how far in it will get?
...as it flung itself in and drenched my corduroys and socks and shoes.
I stood up, squealed "AAA!" or something like that and looked around. I started squelching back to the brown rocks. (I was beginning to vaguely grasp what the difference in color might have meant.) I wanted to find Cat and Christy, but I was also hoping they hadn't seen this.
As I looked around I heard a whistle. "Don't worry," Christy said from the ledge where he and Cat were sitting. "Nobody saw that. Not many people, anyway."
For the rest of the day, when Cat broke into giggles, I knew the mental picture that prompted them. But I didn't mind. They were gracious enough to provide me a place to stay on this trip--the least I could do for Cat and Christy was to provide them some entertainment.