We took a nice long hike the other day in the Tollymore Forest Park, near Newcastle (as opposed to all the Oldcastles), in the Mourne Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. All this in the Northwest part of Ireland, just a quick one-hour drive from Belfast..
After a couple hours of hiking in the mountains, we came to a nice path that wound its way through the woods. The whole time I found myself expecting Robin Hood to jump out of the trees and rob us (until he realized that we were not the rich lord and lady he would ordinarily be robbing), or a horse-drawn carriage to come clattering by with Friar Tuck in the back swilling ale.
It’s a pretty Robin-Hoody kind of place…
We hiked past a nice lake… well, a reservoir actually, on the Shimna River.
As we continued downstream, it only grew more and more fairytalesque.
And kind of troll-y…
We came across a bunch of bridges and hiding places that looked like prime spots to spot a bridge troll or two.
How could there not be a troll living underneath this bridge?
Or at the very least, a leprechaun hiding a wee pot of gold under there (sadly, we did not find any).
As we wander about Ireland, it just keeps making me think of picture-perfect Hollywood movie sets. There are these romantic, fairytale forest visuals everywhere you look. It’s almost too much. It causes a bit of beautiful-scenery-overload sometimes (wait til I post the pictures of the grasslands and the sea cliffs). If we don’t take a day off every now and then it all just gets to be a bit too much and you kind of just start to forget all you have seen the day before.
Bridge trolls… gotta be some here!
Sometimes, very rarely, the picture actually catches the magic.
The Foley Bridge. 1787.
That subtle reflection…
Movie sets… am I right, or am I right?
We found a little village of troll holes. Or was it leprechauns? Goblins?
Then Tam found one!
This one was a gristly, scruffy old specimen, even for a bridge troll. It ran off pretty quickly. I don’t think it liked having its picture taken.
The bridge troll I found was really cute. She seemed quite a lot friendlier, and much nicer looking. Sadly, she was quite shy and kept running away.
Oh, never mind… not a bridge troll. A forest nymph or a faerie perhaps, but not a troll, definitely not a troll. Far too cute for that.
In all seriousness, Ireland is gorgeous. It really is an overload on the senses in so many ways.
More to come…
