Leon Turnbull Photography

For our last day, we went back to Ireland. This day was a bit of a bust. Half of it was a bust anyway.

Our first stop was a lighthouse which we could not get to see because the gate was closed. Lame.

Next we went to see Glenevin Falls (pictured here). It is a very easy half mile hike, and we were the only ones on the trail. The light (again) was perfect, which is good because the trail/parking does not open until after 9am, so in other words you can only come to this waterfall in the middle of the day. It is a very gorgeous 60 ft. high waterfall. Nekoda and I hiked to the top of the falls; there were some nice views up from the top, but no other waterfalls to see. There is a lower falls as well, but it is on a side creek, and the side creek was only just a trickle.

After the waterfall, it started to rain a bit. We went to Carrickabraghy Castle, which was quite interesting. It was very cold and windy there. A lady we met there said it was the coldest spot in Ireland. I don’t know about that but it sure felt like it.

We then went back to Portrush and went to the Carrick a Rede rope bridge. We were told by a local that this was worth the money and we should do it, however in my opinion it was a total tourist scam. My wife liked it, but it cost us 22 pounds to walk across a very short and uninteresting rope bridge. No thank you. But you took my money anyway. Argh. What a waste. You can’t even take your time and take photos on the bridge, because they herd you across and back as fast as possible; however, I ignored them and went across slowly anyway, trying to take some video. I don’t think it worked though, because my family were herded across quickly, so they were not on the bridge very long for me to take video of them. Argh. Again.

The next day it rained. It was not just raining, it was very windy. This was the day we had to drive back to Belfast early in the morning for our flight home. I was watching the weather all week long, and I was concerned because all week it said there would be high winds. Our flight to London was delayed two hours because there were huge delays at Heathrow. Are you ready for it? I HATE British Airways!!  The delay was not BA’s fault, obviously, but they boarded us anyway and made us sit in the cramped plane for two hours. They knew the flight was delayed. Why couldn’t they let us sit in the comfortable airport lounge for a couple hours before boarding us? So when we finally got to London, we now only had two hours before our next connecting flight to San Jose. It took the full 2 hours to get to our next flight, and we barely made it. Why ??? Because British Airways would not check our baggage through to San Jose. So stupid!! We had to collect our bags, then go through security again, and re-check in our baggage. They make you use their stupid automated check in machines, and their machines do not work! They have hardly any staff there to help you, so here we are waiting for help cuz their stupid automated machines do not work, and the line behind us is getting longer and longer. Argh! So bloody stressful! The actual flight was uneventful, but I could not get very much sleep, so I was over tired when we arrived in San Jose. The next part was not BA’s fault, but going through U.S. Customs was also an absolute nightmare. The lines were huge, and they had very few officers on duty. It took over an hour to clear customs. So stupid! Then to top it all off, the car parking machine stole my credit card and I had to call for help to get it back. Oh my gosh!

You wonder why I hate flying so much? The last time I got in a plane was 10 years ago in 2009 when we went to Alaska (that was not a good flight either). I said to my wife after this trip to Scotland/Ireland that I don’t ever want to fly again. She hates that I said that, but it is just too bloody stressful for me. I already have a stroke risk, I do not need this in my life. I very much enjoyed Scotland and Ireland, but the flying I just hate. It is not worth the stress to me. I think I will just stay in the western USA and Canada. It would have been a million times better if not for the stupidness of British Airways and U.S. Customs. Maybe in ten years I will try again. Stick around and you will find out.

On Day 7, we crossed the border from Northern Ireland to Ireland. It is a little strange how you can cross into another country without any border control whatsoever, and then all of a sudden things are quite different. You are now using the metric system (kilometers instead of miles). The currency is now Euros instead of pounds. Ireland also seemed a lot cleaner to me. The litter on the trails we hiked in Ireland was negligible. Maybe it was just the particular trails we were hiking on, but it was a noticeable difference.

Our first stop was Glenveagh National Park. From the parking lot, you have to take the bus into the park to the castle and gardens. We were on the first bus of the day when it opened. My wife and kids wanted to take the castle tour, and I wanted to hike to the waterfall. It is a 3 mile one way hike to the waterfall. It was not flowing very well (as I expected, though I was still hoping for much better); nonetheless, it was a beautiful hike to the end of the lake. Again, God provided cloud cover for me just as I arrived at the waterfall viewpoint.

There were a lot of ticks on the trail! These were the first (and only) ticks I saw in any of these countries. Before this trip, I had no idea Ireland even had ticks. The trail was very wide so it was easy to avoid them, unless you happen to go off the trail to take photos (which I did of course!). So, I did get a couple ticks on my body, but I saw them in time before they did any damage. I wondered why there would be ticks here. They are not going to attach themselves to any humans because the trail is so wide (except for stupid humans such as myself), and there are very few animals in this park (no sheep, no cows, very few deer). How do they survive!?!?!

When I got back to the castle, I expected my family to be waiting for me. I was right on schedule for our designated rendezvous time. Where were they? I wanted to get on the bus and get going to the next destination. I wandered around the gardens, but saw no sign of them. I asked the lady in the castle if there were currently any tours going on and if my family might be in them. She said the tour ended in five minutes. I waited. They did not show up when the tour ended. Ugh! I thought they must have taken the bus back to the parking lot and were waiting for me there. Why they would do that I had no idea, because there was no way for me to contact them or know that they had done that. I decided to catch the next bus back. It would suck if they were not at the car because then I would have to pay for another bus ticket to come back to the castle. I waited at the bus stop, and just as I was about to have a heart attack, I saw them, sitting on a bench. Apparently their castle tour had just ended now. Thanks lady for giving me that misinformation about the tour ending in five minutes, and almost giving me a heart attack.

Following this we went to the Dunlewey Church ruins nearby. I saw this on a video by photographer Nick Page, and thought it looked very fascinating. It was close by so why not. It is definitely a very cool old church, and well worth the stop.

Then we went to see Assaranca Falls, 300 ft. (pictured here). The road out here is one of those narrow single lane roads. The locals coming towards you in their vehicles do not bother to slow down. Ah! This really freaks me out. It is a beautiful waterfall, but it is a bit popular because it right is by the roadside. There was a group of east Indian guys here being way too loud and taking way too long to photograph the waterfall. Why are they taking so long? It really ruined my experience at this falls. I like to enjoy my waterfalls in peace and quiet. My wife agreed with me on this one. She said she could not get a good photo of the waterfall herself because of them, and others who came by apparently had the same problem. I decided to cross the creek to get a little bit of peace, but it was not much better.

We continued up the road to the Owenwee River Falls. The road gets very narrow and steep after Assaranca. I did not want to drive further up the road, so I parked in a pullout and walked up the road. My daughter said this was the “weakest” waterfall she has ever seen. What does that even mean? It was not really weak, you just need to get up closer to it. As I photographed the falls, a sheep continued to “baa” at me the entire time. Seriously? You don’t want me to photograph your personal little waterfall, sheep? Why not, eh? Am I intruding on your personal space, like those east Indian guys at the other waterfall? (I think the answer to that is, yes).

We then went to see the Maghera sea caves since it was low tide, and you can only see them at low tide. This was planned. I knew it would be low tide at this time. You don’t believe me? Ah, well it is true, I did plan it this way. However, I also thought it would be raining, according to the forecast. It did not rain on us. We continued to have perfect weather. The caves are quite interesting, but not huge. The last one requires you to climb up a steep hill to get to it. The cave does not go in very far, but it has a very large chamber. Nekoda and I went up first, the others were waiting to see if we found anything interesting, and if it was worth their effort to climb up the hill. We waved them up. Tara came, but Jadon decided he did not want to climb the hill; he really missed out. It was a pretty cool cave.

There is one thing that perturbed me about all my hikes in Scotland and Northern Ireland: there was a lot of trash on the trail. I found that the trails had more litter than even in California. It would not surprise me if a lot of this trash was caused by Americans littering in foreign countries, and there may have been some of that, but I believe the vast majority of it was done by locals. I find this very upsetting and sad. Cranny Falls, for instance, which we went to next after Glenoe Falls, is mostly a locals trail, not a tourist trail, and there was a ton of trash on this trail. I always pick up trash when I am hiking as I hate seeing litter on trails (it is my number two pet peeve). My wife and I picked up more than our fair share of it, trying to clean up the trails in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it got to the point where I was just sick and tired of it all. I think the Scottish and Irish hiking trails societies ought to be thanking us personally (if there is even such a group in those countries – ha ha).

We did find the people in Scotland and Northern Ireland to be very friendly. On our hike to Cranny Falls, my wife asked some locals about the berries she saw on some plants. Are they edible, she asked? No! they replied emphatically. That is poison ivy. Don’t eat that. We want you to enjoy your stay in our country!

After Cranny Falls, our next stop was Glenariff Falls, where there are two beautiful waterfalls on a nice loop trail in Glenariff Forest Park, an upper falls – pictured here (60 ft.) and a lower falls (40 ft.). You have to pay for parking at this park, 5 pounds. It is worth the fee, but again, I found so much trash on these trails. If I am paying this much to go into the park, why aren’t they keeping the trails clean? Where is my money going to? Why can’t they keep their parks clean in Northern Ireland? I found this to be even more upsetting than the trail at Cranny Falls (where the parking was free).

My daughter took a wrong turn on the trail here, because she decided to go off the trail to take a “short cut”, and thus she missed the “waterfall sign” pointing the other direction. I was way behind (taking video) and did not see her, but my wife saw her go off the wrong way and yelled at me, so I grabbed my camera and ran after her. It took awhile to catch her, she was far up the trail. So much for that short cut. It was a fun hike, but not exactly easy. There is a long climb from the lower falls back up the car. By the time we got back to the car, the local cafe was closed because it was almost sunset, which is where I had hoped to eat dinner. We had to drive a bit, but we eventually found something better: a pizza place in some small town. Yum.

On this day we explored the eastern side of Northern Ireland, going to the Dark Hedges, then Carrickfergus castle; both of these were fairly interesting places. The Dark Hedges are a grove of beech trees along the road. The road is closed to vehicle traffic, so people can just walk down the road amongst the trees. They were planted in 1775. Apparently the trees are haunted as well. Go figure. The Carrickfergus castle is a Norman castle built in 1177. It is in very good shape considering how old it is. Unfortunately, it was partly closed for renovations when we were there, but we still got a nice tour of it. It was definitely worth visiting. Some tourist came in and started complaining loudly because the castle was partly closed and they were still charging for the tour. Geez lady, give it a rest.

We followed up these locations with a few waterfalls of course.

Our first waterfall stop was Glenoe Falls, 40 ft. I have seen it spelled Gleno and Glenoe, so I have no idea which one is correct. I think Glenoe is good. This is a very easy and very short walk. My kids decided to go the hard way, however, using a big rope to climb up a very steep hill, which then just came back to the regular trail. Silly kids.

When we arrived, the falls was in the sun so I had to wait a bit for some clouds to cover it before I could take some decent photos. There were a few people playing in the water, but not in my way for taking photos. I did not have to wait too long for the sun. God was very gracious to me on this trip. I think I said that already.

We finished up at Glenoe Falls just in the knick of time. A very large group came down the trail to the waterfall. It was a wedding party. I’m not sure if they were having the wedding at the falls, or just taking wedding photos at the falls (it seemed a very large group for just wedding pictures – but maybe that’s the way they do it in Ireland). They took over the entire waterfall location very quickly, crashing our waterfall party in a heartbeat. Thankfully, I was all done taking my photos. Time to go on to the next one. Day 6 Part 2 coming soon…

On Day 5 of our trip, we flew to Belfast in the morning and drove to Portrush, where we would be staying the next few days. I was not particularly impressed with Portrush. It is like a mini San Francisco, and our lodge was right in the middle of it. I do not really want to spend my  vacation in San Francisco. The traffic was a mess and there were far too many people. It was not very relaxing. Well, it is not like we would be spending too much time at the lodge. We had many sights to see.

There is so much to see in Scotland and Ireland, we only saw a small tiny drop in the bucket there. We only had 8 days in total for the three countries (Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland). My wife is the one that really wanted to see Ireland. It has been on her bucket list forever. When her group decided to do this Europe trip, Ireland was not on the list. She was upset. How can she go all the way over there, and not see Ireland. She decided to extend the Europe vacation, and go to Ireland separately. This is why I went. I do not like tour groups, and I was not going to go to France and England in a big group to see things I do not want to see. I want to do my own thing (waterfalls is a big part of that, of course). So when she decided to go to Ireland separately, I said heck yes. We can spend time there by ourselves, doing the things we want to do and seeing the things we want to see (waterfalls is a big part of that, of course!). I would go over a bit earlier, so I can see Scotland as well, which was another country I really wanted to see. So that is what we did, and it was awesome.

We checked into our Air bnb lodge in downtown San Francisco, I mean Portrush. The lock on the door would not work. We could not figure it out whatsoever. Oh great. Now we would not be able to leave our stuff in the lodge while we were out and about. We had to call the owner (a $15 phone call), and he told us how to lock the door very simply. This may have been pretty obvious to Irish people, but to Americans, it is very un-intuitive how to lock the doors there. Why could they just not say how to do this in the instructions? It sure could have saved us that darn expensive phone call.

In the afternoon, we visited the Giants Causeway, Fair Head, Dunluce Castle, Kinbane Castle, Dunseverick Castle, and Dunseverick Falls. The Giants Causeway is a big huge tourist scam. It was apparently featured in one of the Harry Potter movies. We were told, thankfully, not to pay the huge entry fee, so we only had to pay 8 pounds for parking. It was a very busy place, and a busy walk down to it. Admittedly, it is a very interesting feature. We could not figure out if it was man made or natural, it looks like it could be either. Legend says it was built by the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, as a crossing to confront his Scottish rival. In fact, however, it is a natural volcanic formation. They have a bunch of attendants there, situated at various places, telling you not to climb here or there. It is a bit ridiculous, but if you fell you could be seriously hurt. There was just way too many people there for my liking.

After this we visited some castles in the area. Kinbane Castle was our favorite, but apparently if you are familiar with Game of Thrones, then you know about Dunluce Castle. I do not know anything about Game of Thrones. What the heck is that? All I know about is the Game of Falls, and I know that Dunseverick Falls (pictured here) is a very pretty little waterfall, cascading into the ocean. We were here at sunset, and it was a gorgeous spot, with beautiful sunset lighting. This place was indeed very relaxing. We had it all to ourselves.