NORTHERN IRELAND. DAY 6. IRISH WEDDING CRASHERS
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…