Our way

For about an hour, we had the Giant's Causeway to ourselves.

Long enough for me to hop about taking photos while my partner found the perfect perch and got her sketchbook out.

She had time to decide which way to face - towards Donegal or Scotland? - and time to choose which details to include: the little pools of sea in the basalt hollows, frothy sea spray, the weathered-tough vegetated cliffs, the odd kittiwake?

It was also long enough to try, and fail, to grasp the age of the Causeway. 60 million years - the sheer scale of geological time. In a sense, the story of the giants Finn McCool and Benandonner having a not-so-little local spat feels a bit more plausible.

Until recently, how this place was formed was based on well-educated speculation about the way basalt fractures when cooled in just the right conditions and this was the goldilocks zone.

Scientists have now been able to recreate those conditions in a lab using samples taken from Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. Maybe somewhere in Iceland there's another goldilocks zone and 60 million years from now, creatures will be sitting on a path stretching out to sea.

For the last few thousand years humans have been part of the story of the Causeway, although we know almost nothing about the first hunter gatherers or farmers and the initial competition for land. We do know it has always been a place within reach of the bigger landmasses to the east, Scotland and Scandinavia, and as a result, ripe for invasion.

In more recent times, tourism arrived. Susanna Drury's paintings of the Causeway in the 1740's went viral and made it a go-to place for those in search of the sublime, Edmund Burke's notion that some landscapes bring a life-affirming, or even life-changing, sense of awe. And while the tourists were being awe-struck, they felt free to part with some cash to entrepreneurial locals offering souvenirs and prophecies.

Then there were the gentlemen landowners, removing the columns on an industrial scale to adorn country homes and grottos in more 'civilised' places before it was taken into national ownership, all under the watchful eye of UNESCO.

But the UNESCO listing isn't just for the Giant's Causeway but the Causeway Coast. The Causeway may be precious, but on it's own it's just a jewel - the coastline is Ireland's crown.

The tourists started arriving. The place had been exclusively ours for long enough so we were happy to share it. But there's one thing we can't share - how we feel about it after having the place to ourselves and how we see it as the endpoint of our walk along the coast - the rest of the crown.

We had started at Ballintoy harbour after a couple of days on Rathlin Island, via Ballycastle.

Our first leg was clambering over the rocks to get to the platinum sands of Whitepark Bay, then on to Dunseverick Harbour and the gentle climb towards the Falls and beyond that, the Castle.

And then the steep hike up to sheer cliffs that take us to the Amphitheatre - the first igneous spectacle. Reaching it with tired legs made it suitably dramatic.

By the time we had reached the Causeway, it was getting late, but still well-covered in other tourists. I somehow didn't feel they deserved it as much as we did. Oh well, hikers privilege.

We walked straight through the site, barely pausing, because we knew we would be back at day break. We headed to the footpath by the old railway track to Bushmills. Time to get some grub, a pint of the black stuff, whiskey nightcap from the local distillery and bed.

This morning we were back on the Causeway for the second time, but now we had the place to ourselves. Not a human or a local giant in sight.

It's understandable why this place is a site of mass tourism. The National Trust couldn't have made it more accessible, informative and welcoming, even for those with an alternative view of history, and it caters well for the million of so tourists who come here every year.

The appeal of instant accessibly is also understandable  - a coach from George Best Airport up to the Causeway, a whizz around the Game of Thrones' sights and a pint of Guinness back at the airport before flying home. Northern Ireland done. A little light relief for the time poor.

But if you can afford to have two or three days extra, a tick off the bucket list is replaced by something meaningful. A true sense of the awesome. 

How to get there

Here are several options for getting to Ireland:

The 402 bus runs along the North Antrim Coast (Causeway Coast), starting in Ballycastle and ending in Coleraine by the train station which runs to Belfast. You can walk as much or as little of it as you like - we started in Ballintoy.

If, like us, you want to go to Rathlin Island first, take the train up to Ballymena and change onto the 131 bus to Ballycastle.