North Antrim Cliff Path

Overview

The North Antrim Cliff Path is the best way to arrive at the Giant’s Causeway: on foot, from above, with the crowds still a mile off. It runs about 5 miles (8 km) along the clifftops between Dunseverick Castle and the Causeway, a linear route you can walk in either direction. Most people park at Dunseverick and head west, finishing down the 162 Shepherd’s Steps onto the stones themselves. The path is free, unfenced in places, and maintained by the National Trust as a key section of the longer Causeway Coast Way and Ulster Way.

Walk it toward the Causeway rather than away from it. You spend the miles with the coast opening ahead of you and end among the columns, instead of climbing away from them at the start. Allow two and a half to three hours one way, more if the seabirds slow you down.

One honest warning: this is a working farm, not a manicured trail. The path runs straight through National Trust organic farmland, so expect gates, grazing cattle and the muck that comes with them, and keep dogs on a lead. The cliff edges are unfenced in places and the ground is uneven, so it is no place for pushchairs or for anyone unsteady near a drop.

Headlands and bays

The walk is a procession of headlands and bays. Port Moon is the largest, a former salmon fishery with a fisherman’s bothy tucked below the cliffs; from there the path passes Portnabrock, Bengore Head, Benbane Head, the viewpoint at Hamilton’s Seat, Plaiskin Head, Port na Spaniagh and the natural bowl known as the Amphitheatre. The rock underfoot is the same basalt that forms the Causeway, cooled roughly 60 million years ago into hexagonal columns and weathered since into ball-and-socket joints.

The Causeway Coast Way carries on past both ends: east from Dunseverick toward White Park Bay and Ballintoy, and west beyond the Causeway toward Dunluce Castle.

Wildlife

The cliffs are busy with nesting seabirds through spring and summer: fulmars, guillemots, razorbills and shags, with the odd puffin in the crevices. Watch for peregrine falcons and stonechats, and for the red-billed chough, now a rare sight here since it breeds only on nearby Rathlin Island. Grey seals and dolphins show up in the water below.

Dunseverick Castle and legend

Local tradition credits the Causeway columns to Fionn mac Cumhaill, who is said to have laid a rock bridge to Scotland; the real cause was volcanic, but the story is stitched into the place names along this coast. Dunseverick Castle, at the eastern end, carries its own history. Archaeology points to a stone fort here in the 5th century, a site linked in tradition to Saint Patrick, which later became a coastal stronghold contested by the O’Cahans and other regional families. Conflict and erosion have left only a gate lodge and a fragment of tower above the harbour.

Getting there and parking

By car, follow the A2 coast road; the walk has a car park at each end. Dunseverick Castle car park (about 18 spaces, on a metal grid surface) has no toilets. Dunseverick Harbour car park, a little further along, has public toilets open daily from 8am. Both are free and both fill on summer weekends, so arrive before midday.

Without a car, the Causeway Rambler (Translink Service 402) links the Giant’s Causeway and Dunseverick in summer, and Service 172 runs between them all year; by rail, take the train to Coleraine and connect by bus. That makes it easy to walk one way and ride back rather than retrace the whole path.

Practical information

• Access and admission: Free, with no tickets or booking. It is an open coastal path with no gates.
• Facilities: Toilets and a small café serve the harbour car park; there are none at the Dunseverick Castle end and no water on the trail, so carry your own.
• Accessibility: Uneven ground, stone steps, unfenced edges and the 162 Shepherd’s Steps at the Causeway end. Not suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs. Wear boots with grip, especially after rain.
• Dogs: Welcome on a lead; keep them close around the grazing cattle.
• Safety: Stay on the path, keep back from the edge, mind children, and turn back in high winds, when sea spray makes the rock slick.

Quick reference

Do it as a one-way walk from Dunseverick to the Causeway and catch the Rambler or the 172 back to your car: you finish among the columns rather than climbing away from them, and you skip the long trudge in reverse.