Norn Irn
Categories: places
Tags: photos, Northern Ireland
Date: 27 August 2010 19:11:41
A bit late, I thought I'd put up a few photos from our brief trip to Northern Ireland last weekend. It was mainly to celebrate family birthdays and engagements, but we also had the chance to check out some scenery. This first picture is on Cloughey beach, which was about a mile away from where we were staying. It might not look much from the picture, but what this is trying to 
show is an amazing effect, whereby the wind (which was blowing from behind us) was blowing dry sand over the wet sand, the dry sand was dancing and swirling and it reminded me of a Dr Who special effect (you know, when the sky goes dark and swirly and you know that something awful is about to happen). It was really beautiful and mesmerising - HD managed to catch a little video of it. The second photo is also of Cloughey beach, looking in the other direction. I turned round and saw this amazing sky - it really was quite breathtaking.
On our last afternoon we went to see my friend from London (mutual friend of me and Kerensa) who moved to NI shortly after I moved to Scotland. She lives at the top of the Ards peninsula (HD's brother lives at the bottom) and it was great to catch up. She took us to Doneghadee (I'm not at all sure I spelt that properly!) and we had lunch in Ireland's oldest pub, Grace Neill's, and wandered round the harbour. 
We then drove to Scrabo tower, on the big hill above Newtownards, and had amazing views over Strangford Lough (or is it Loch?) (the other side of the peninsula from the Irish Sea) towards the Mourne Mountains. The Republic is beyond those moutains.