Great Winter Ride Antrim Coast Road

Northern Ireland has some excellent routes on offer, with the Antrim Coast Road a perfect winter ride

- Mikko Nieminen

The Antrim Coast Road is one of the top rides in the UK, but I would be lying if I said that this was a great winter ride from start to finish. Not because the coast road itself isn’t great (it really is!), but because I had to get there first, and I was in the English Midlands. With time being of the essence, that meant a long slog on motorways to get to where I wanted to be.

Slowly but surely things did improve though. I had picked a Stena Line crossing from Cairnryan in Scotland to Belfast in Northern Ireland, and once I had said goodbye to the motorways that took me from England to Scotland, the A75 to the coast was a huge improvement. It’s a big, fast road that at times offers wild views of the Irish sea while serving the most delicious set of bends. It’s difficult to concentrate on both the road and the scenery at the same time. Things were improving, for sure.

Sailing in style

I had been lucky with the weather most of the way, but by the time I got to the ferry terminal in Cairnryan it was raining. And as soon as we set sail, the captain announced that the crossing would be a rough one, with gale-force winds blowing over the Irish Sea.

It wasn’t too bad, though. The ferry ploughed through the waves, gently swaying, which made me more sleepy than worried... until I started Googling Belfast sights and got to the Titanic museum. I quickly moved on…