Irelands part III: Glenveagh National Park

After our adventure at Giant's Causeway, we took it easy on our last day in Belfast, did a little walking around the neighborhood but mostly chilled out at home. I remember falling into a splendid nap on the couch and drinking lots of ginger tea to encourage my immune system to flush out the cold that was making itself cozy in my face. Dusk settling in with fairy lights aglow in the kitchen, passing around leftover banoffi pie and freshly baked cookies, the rhythmic click of knitting needles and fingers flying over the Irish flute, late-night hugs leaning over a laptop as it was announced that Australians had voted overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality. Hot water bottles and a cold attic slumber party. 

Morning came with sunshine and goodbyes, with our charming host headed off to work, Sandy back to Germany, and Asa and I back to the Republic of Ireland for the more intense hiking leg of our adventure. Destination: Glenveagh National Park in Co. Donegal, northwest Ireland, where we would spend a day and a half exploring this "remote and hauntingly beautiful wilderness". We were pumped.

The drive there touted some typically Irish landscapes -- rolling, green hills dotted with sheep -- and Asa and the GPS did an excellent job navigating the narrow, winding roads while I rolled my window up and down and up and down, exclaiming this and that while taking pictures. He was a very good sport about the whole thing.

Once we neared the national park, the landscape changed dramatically from lush green to barren, rust-colored vistas, as if we had just driven onto a different planet. After parking and venturing out along the first trail through the grassland, the sky wavering between rain and sun, Asa said something along the lines of, "So, this is Rohan". And so it was, rather. Only without the horses, or any people, for that matter. In fact, we hardly saw another soul that whole afternoon or the following day. Probably because it was the middle of the week in late November in the middle of nowhere with somewhat miserable weather, but whatever. The silence was delicious. 
 

There were still a couple hours of daylight to go once done with the nature trail, so we circled around back to the lake and followed the road along the water to the castle, then took the trail leading above the castle to check out the view.
 

After a short time at the top, the overcast sky began shifting in a way that implied high drama on the way, so we stuck it out to see what kind of pre-sunset was in store. Indeed, for a few short minutes, the sun dipped below the clouds, filling the valley with golden light, silhouetting the mountainy layers on either side, and spotlighting the castle in the rusty landscape beneath us.  

Yup. Worth it. 
When the angels stopped singing, we figured it was time to turn around before it got too dark and made it back to the car as the last of the color was draining from the clouds.
 

It didn't take long to locate our airbnb on the outskirts of a nearby town, and we settled in with hot showers, soup, and grilled cheese. We wanted to make an early start the next day to explore as much of the park as possible, so set a pre-dawn alarm, breakfasted mightily, and drove back north as the sun stretched its first rays over the red-brown hills. It was drizzly and overcast as we started the Upper Glen Walk along Lough Veagh, and remained so for the rest of the day except for a few spectacular minutes of sunshine scattered here and there along the way.

The road took us back through the castle gardens and the continued along the lake, winding through groves of old, wind-twisted trees, overgrown with ivy and soft moss. In the literature about the trails there is mention of a "Poisoned Glen", and though it was unmarked, this fit the description. It was eerily beautiful and could have easily been host to ancient, dark magic.

We took a break where the lake narrowed to a stream, at the base of a huge waterfall descending from the Derryveagh Mountains. A few rays of sun lit the cliffs a bright orange against a passing patch of blue sky before the clouds returned and muted the colors once again.
 

From there we continued along the path as it climbed up and out of the valley, and past the creaky gate marking the boundary of the national park. At that point we were clear out of the glen and after briefly surveying the surrounding grassy hillsides, turned back.
 

When two Americans go hiking in a place far from home, you can betcher bottom dollar that there will be banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Snack of champions.
 

Then this happened, several times actually. We may not have seen much sun, but we definitely got a fine share of rainbows, such as this one shining over the castle way off in the distance.
 

This was another moment that pleased me to no end. Purple sheep in a green grove, munching magical moss amidst the twisted trees.
 

Wanting to optimize our daylight use and see as much of the park as we could, we took a detour on the way back and walked a ways along the Lough Inshagh path until the sun set and we turned around. More wild, wilder, wilderness. The whole time. The whole park. Breathtaking, even in the rain. And oh, be still my heart to think what views might be viewed in fine weather!

The last couple kilometers we walked in the near dark, which was a lovely thing unto itself, just being outside in that faraway place, the landscape deepening in shades of blue, disappearing in the night air. The stillness. Knowing how unlikely it was that I would ever be in this remote place on this green isle again, with one of my best friends, and being grateful for every moment.
 

In which the snow falls softly upon palms.

Woke up to a wintery scene this morning and went a-walking along the harbor. All quiet except for the occasional cry of "Haaaafenrundfaaaahrt" and the surprised flutter of seagull wings, the soft crunch-crunch-creak of footsteps on wooden docks, and whatever sound exhaled breath makes when it appears as a fine puff of white and disperses amidst the swirling snowflakes. 

Irelands part II: Belfast & Giant's Causeway

A few years ago, my friend (apparently dubbed the Darling Dubliner in past posts and still one of my favorite people on the planet) relocated to Belfast and I was happy for a chance to spend some time with him in his new home, and to bring along a couple other friends to share in the adventuring. I'd never been to Northern Ireland before and didn't know much about it or Belfast other than its history of violence in recent decades. This history felt heightened even before we arrived, as my friend was worried about harm coming to our rental car with Republic of Ireland plates parked in a heavily loyalist neighborhood. He considered having us park, literally and figuratively, on the other side of the tracks a few streets away, but in the end decided we could risk it -- only because there was no football match planned for the time we were there.

With a caffeinated Asa at the wheel, the drive was uneventful. There is no border control between the two countries -- a point of discussion in the Brexit talks -- and signs alert you that you are now in Northern Ireland of the United Kingdom, where distance is counted in miles instead of kilometers and where you pay in pounds instead of euros. And as stated at many of the roundabouts in both Irelands, you are kindly reminded to drive on the left side, thankyouverymuch. 

We were based in Belfast for a few days, during which time we did some wandering around the city and took a day trip to the northern coast. My friend gave us a tour of Important Historical Places on our first day -- not the sparkly ones traditionally found in guidebooks, but rather those that made all this talk of violence and troubles tangible. Ordinary streets, drab in the cold, gray rain, were marked with memorials for victims, martyrs, soldiers, those who had died fighting for their country, their beliefs, and for those who died on the sidelines. Many parts of the city are still separated by "peace lines", which are nothing more than tall, fortified walls erected to keep sparring neighborhoods apart and their inhabitants safe from one another. One such wall we walked along was covered in murals -- on the Irish nationalist side there were shoutouts to other separatist movements in other parts of the world ("Ireland stands with Catalonia", huge paintings of civil rights figures, and memorials for victims of other acts of violence in other parts of the world, such as one part of the wall painted black with "Orlando 2016" and a rainbow heart. In the loyalist neighborhood on the other side of the gate, just a few meters and many threatening metal spikes away from a painting of a skewedly smiling Obama, the wall decor changed significantly, proudly touting its solidarity with Israel and memorializing fallen British soldiers. Lots of red poppy wreaths.    

This city infrastructure divided between unionist/loyalist/protestant areas loyal to the British Crown and Irish nationalist/republican/Catholic areas that want to leave the UK in favor of a united Ireland has a huge effect on the city, not only in terms of where people live, but in how they get around (streets, busses, etc.), where they go to church, where they shop, where kids go to school and what kind of extracurricular activities are available, what languages they speak (ie. to what extent they learn Irish), etc., not to mention the general feeling of kinship or opposite thereof with the neighbors. Sure, the city government has a responsibility for all of its inhabitants and efforts have been made to reunite the city, but how that plays out in reality is a different story.    

Of course, the touristy downtown area more or less conceals the divided nature of the rest of the city. The city hall is a glorious piece of building inside and out and was lit up colorfully in anticipation of the upcoming Christmas season. Shopping malls sparkled and the designer stores and big name brands made some districts indistinguishable from other European metropoles. We warmed up drinking gourmet hot chocolate as night fell and the city lit up around us, then eventually walked home along quiet, yellow-lit streets, passing the young faces of those who had died for their country, or for their queen, or for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   

While in Dublin, pretty much everyone we talked to about going to Belfast said we had to go to the Giant's Causeway, so one bright, pink sunrisey morning, we did. The drive up to the north coast was lovely and sunshiney, which changed about four minutes after we parked and giant clouds caused way more sun to disappear than was necessary. But ah well. The famous pillars and volcanic formations were still impressive, and we enjoyed wandering the path with the less than helpful audio guide telling cheesy stories about the giant who formed this place, his grandmother, his lost boot, and much more interesting tidbits like stories about the tea vendors who used to sell hot beverages to the tourists along the way. No tea shops nowadays, but plenty of tourists hopping amongst the hexagonal stones like seagulls with selfie sticks. It was better once we got away from the main touristy bit and rounded a bend to find a cliff that looked like a pipe organ, and then scaled other cliffs on conveniently built staircases. It was impressive to think how people used to schlepp kelp and sheep up and down those cliffs before the steps were put in to give tourists like me a way to enjoy the view without breaking my neck. Thanks for that.

After warming up and depositing a Sandy in a cozy place with tea and knitting, Asa and I headed back to the cliffs and headed west for a ways, where we watched waves crash and swell in a landscape that was even wilder and, in our opinion, more impressive than the touristy path to the east. Soon the afternoon and the rain caught up with us and we turned back, wanting to return to Belfast before it got too late.