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.

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.

The next day I decided to pack up and hike back home. I was not exactly certain what I wanted to do, stay a second night, or hike back out? There were potential thunderstorms on the forecast for this day, and there was nothing else (no other hikes) I could do all day anyway, so I just decided to go home.

I got up very early and packed up my gear quickly. I wanted to be sure to photograph that upper falls in good light. It was only a half mile but still took over 30 minutes. That brush! I barely made it to the upper falls in time. I am calling this one Far Upper Big Granite Creek Falls. It is about 50 ft. high in two tiers. It is perhaps the lost one on this creek amidst the big waterfalls downstream, but it is a very cool and powerful waterfall. Yet another waterfall discovery by yours truly, the waterfall madman.

On that note, I have a comment to make. Other than Russell and Tom 13 years ago, I know of NO OTHER person that has ever been to the upper Big Granite Creek waterfalls. It is an extremely strenuous hike. There are many difficulties and many treacherous spots. I was almost certain no other person has ever been down there. And yet … there is a faint path along the creek, which I spotted occasionally from this far upper falls down to the big waterfalls. It is so faint it is basically non-existent. I assumed it was a bear trail. I was certain it had to be a bear trail. But as you get closer to the big waterfalls, it is more defined. The bears would not go down to these waterfalls (then again, maybe bears like waterfalls too). Seriously, it is obviously a human path down near the falls. This path was not made by two people 14 years ago. So who has been here? When were they there? Why have I not heard that anyone has else has ever been here? It is so faint, I wonder if it was made by people a long time ago, before Russell/Tom were there. It all just seemed very strange.

I made my breakfast at the upper falls, enjoying the moments with my coffee as the sun rose above the mountains to shine down on me and the waterfall. Then it was time to make the long, very difficult, 1900 ft. climb out of the canyon. When I finally got to the top, I could see the storm clouds starting to roll in. I was on an exposed ridge, and a thunderstorm was just behind me. I needed to get down off that ridge quick. Actually, the storm seemed to be going in the other direction. I had a tiny bit of rain fall on me, but nothing to write home about. Then …

My GPS died. To be more specific, my batteries died. I couldn’t believe it. Three sets of batteries should have been MORE than enough to last for 2 days. It wasn’t. Indeed, the last set of batteries only lasted about 3 hours even though they should have been fully charged. How could that have happened? Well, I was not on any trail or road. There was 10 feet of snow on the ground. I was lost … but … not exactly. I had a backup on my iPhone (Gaia GPS). With the Gaia map, I easily figured out which way to proceed and successfully found the way to my vehicle in short order. I have never needed to use it before, but if I did not have this backup, I would have been lost. There were no signs, no trails, no way to determine which way I needed to go. Honestly, I did not load the Gaia map on my phone before this hike, so I believe God was looking out for me here. This is a lesson learned (for me). Always make sure you have a good backup. This is critical for everyone, in my opinion. Remember that guy who got lost at Loch Leven Lakes a couple years ago and almost died? He not only did not have any backup system, he did not have a way to call for help either. Everyone needs to have a reliable navigation system (whatever it is) and a reliable backup. I can easily see (especially after this weekend), how someone can get lost in the wilderness. Even if you always hike on a trail, it is still possible to lose the trail and get turned around, but if there is snow or if you hike off trail, then it is doubly important. There is my two cents.