Another walk up the Cave Hill in Belfast

I say another walk up the Cave Hill but the last (and first) time I did this was 11 months before, that time I wandered up on a day off by myself but this time Norngirl was with me and luckily the view hadn't gone away.

As I went into detail last time, this time I'll just go through this two words or less per picture and let the images be your guide. Well that and Norngirl if you'd like to head over to her blog for a summary of our walk.

This way!

Pretty Blossoms

Bird Pole

Greeny Blue?

Field O'Tree

Couples view

In Shadow

Chosen Path

Bit Bumpy

Grassy Detail

Belfast Rocks

Fern Ahead

Rocky Road

Cave Hill

Loglight

Leaf Relief

Ferned On

Smurf Bridge

Daisy End

Newcastle for the View and some Ice Cream

On bank holiday Monday after finding Tollymore Forest Park very pretty but understandably packed, we queued into Newcastle and luckily managed to find a space in the middle of the main street.

As soon as we were out of the car and found somewhere out of the flow of people, the decision was made to make a bee-line for ice cream. We queued for a wee while in the famous Maud's by the river before getting our hands on a sugary treat, mine was a Strawberry and Chocolate medium tub and it eyed me up so badly that I couldn't help but start digging into it before we made it to the stone benches overlooking the beach, the footbridge and the river.

It was a pretty scene and oddly there were less people sat around here then had been in a stones throw of us sat on the grass by the parked cars on the hill in the forest park. I wandered off a little to try out my new camera's sweep panorama mode some more and was pretty pleased with the results that you can see at the top of this post but eventually it was time to head on. We walked a little way down the sea front...

...and then cut up an alley back onto the main street.

The clouds were still hiding the sun that in turn was hiding a fully lit view of the Mourne Mountains - which was a shame.

We made our way back to the car and got into the long queue to leave Newcastle. At that point the sun came out and it was like a hot summers day and really like the seaside we all like to remember it as. Also whilst in the queue, one of Norngirl's cousins and aunty gave us a quick scare as they got our attentions from the pavement by banging on the window whilst we were stationary... as I was saying, everyone seemed to be heading to the coast.

It was a pleasant ride home listening to music I'd not heard in a while like Garth Brooks' 'Friends in Low Places' before heading home for a night watching Bones episodes. It turned out to be a really nice day even with all the queues.

Visiting Tollymore Forest Park

At the foot of the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland sits the traditional seaside resort of Newcastle and nearby, the Tollymore Forest Park. On the Easter bank Holiday Monday this is where we headed on a family day out.

It seemed everyone in Northern Ireland was planning on heading to the coast on the same day so it came as no surprise that we were stuck in a queue on the roads approaching bottlenecks on the way to the Tollymore Forest Park but eventually we made it, paid the £4.40 car entrance fee and joined the parade of hundreds of other cars that once parked sprawled over the tarmac and grass all around the front of the grounds to the park. It was a little worrying that there seemed to be more cars and people then trees on this day in this forest park but after a picnic lunch we headed out onto one of the trails to see what we would find. We just stuck to the red path as we were planning on heading on into Newcastle afterwards so didn't want to be too long.

The red trail passes down a scenic garden path lined with colourful bushes and trees.

At the bottom of this path there is the Shimna River.

We walked along the path upstream admiring the small waterfalls and pools before eventually crossing a bridge to the other side where there were more views of the river and it's scenic paths to be had.

At the other side of the river was a walk through a section of managed evergreen forest and very tall trees they were, looking up really meant bending your head back...

We carried on along the path avoiding large groups of people until we reached a shallow lake.

This was the point where I started to notice the lack of wildlife in this forest park. It might just have been the amount of people and dogs present that had scared all the creatures into hiding but take the lake for instance... there were more dogs swimming in the lake then ducks. The reflections of the trees on the water (where the water was not disturbed by pesky dogs) was rather memorising.

We then crossed back across the river looking back down into the river from the bridge.

Just over the bridge were some some young trees where bluebells were scattered the forest floor.

What goes up much come down and we'd already had the down so it was time to go back up. A lengthy hill followed, filled again with people and a worrying amount of canines.

This grassy hill was a mess that was peppered by the remains of hard boiled eggs presumably from some Easter egg roll. The dogs were all sniffing and in some cases trying to eat the eggy remains, some a little old and some seemingly being freshly created... as we reached the top of the hill, there were some parents with their teenage kids throwing hard boiled eggs at one another and to their dogs. Must be some 'dog person' tradition or something, I just found it a real inconvenience trying to dodge dogs on the floor and cooked yolk and egg white whilst whistling through the air whilst slightly out of breath and I put my camera away for safe keeping!

Thankful, we reached the top we headed back to the makeshift car park.

My mother-in-law was waiting for the four of us to return and after another chill and having to prevent a dog (admittedly a very cute one) from trying to join us in the car, we headed on to Newcastle - the one in County Down that is.

The forest park was very pretty and I'd love to go back at some point in the future to walk the rest of the trails but I think for my own sanity it'd have to be at a quite time and not on a bank holiday Monday.