Leon Turnbull Photography

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.