Headland, Causeway Coast

Here's another little painting from my London show with an interesting story behind it.  This is 'Headland, Causeway Coast', painted at the Giant's Causeway.

I went very early in the morning, when there was still a lot of early mist, and spent a long time walking along the paths by the shore, and then back along the cliff path, which forms part of the Ulster Way, to get a different angle.

I sat for a long time in a very secluded spot looking down over the bay and watching the light change, taking a series of photographs.  It was very quiet and completely undisturbed, and away from the normal tourist trail.  There were lots of harbells and wild frlowers, and it was very peaceful.

Or so I thought - because who should come around the corner but two Dutch geocachers (hullo Wim and Marianne!).  Geocachers are an online community who follow clues given on the web to real physical places where small caches of treasure are hidden in the ground.  And it turned out I was sitting right on one of them.  What were the chances of that?

Anyway, Wim and Marianne were lovely, although it probably gave them a bit of a shock.   I don't think 'red-head with camera' was in any of their clues....

Over the years that I've been visiting the Giant's Causeway, it's become much busier and more difficult to park.  Now they have a park and ride at Bushmills, which you have to use unless you go really early and can get into the car parks beside the old visitors centre.  They're building a huge new visitor's centre, which, according to the artist's impression, looks obtrusively massive, and houses all sorts of 'interpretation centres'.  How much interpreting do rocks need?

I plan to go back this August as usual, so we'll see what changes there have been....