Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures / Friday / Ireland / photo — Comments Off
20
Mar 26

Ballymastocker Strand

We woke up in Letterkenny this morning, which is a good thing, since that’s where we went to sleep last night. Our room is right on the corner of the building. The quiet road we came in on turned into a busy highway first thing this morning, so we were up a little earlier than we’d anticipated.

We found a wallet just before sundown last night it belongs to Tim, a man from all the way over in Washington State. He’s just turned 65 this year. Maybe this trip was a birthday trip, or a retirement celebration. Maybe they just come here a lot. No matter what it is, he’s going to need his Medicare card, and his credit card, and his debit card. We had these and a few other less important things, and we managed to find him on Facebook, and indirectly reached him that way. Turns out that he and his wide were due to come through Letterkenny, so they met us this morning.

He’s taller than he looks in his driver’s license photo. And his wife said “Oh, I’d hug you both, but I have a cold.” Nice people, seems like, we chatted with them for a few moments. His was one of those slim wallets, sticks on the back of his phone. As best he could figure it just fell off when he pulled the phone out of his pocket at that beach. When one of his family members, because of our Facebook messaging, caught up with him last night he hadn’t yet realized it was missing. So, I assume, he was never going to find the thing. Maybe we saved them a little bit of heartache. Anyway, as soon as I passed it to him he handed it to his wife, who put it in her purse. They’d talked about this.

Turns out this isn’t the first time this has happened. Once, on a trip to Virginia several years ago something similar happened and someone happened to find it while they were nearby. Tim and his wife definitely talked about this last night.

Anyway, they thanked us and thanked us and went on their way.

We had a nice little Irish breakfast — which is a thing I think I could say every day and be perfectly happy — and then set out for more fun in the sun. The woman at the front desk of the hotel said yesterday was the first time they’ve seen the sun this year. There are tradeoffs, as we learn, and sunlight is probably going to win out over breakfast.

Our first stop today was Ballymastocker Strand, on the Knockalla coast. This is regarded as one of the finest golden strands in Ireland. From here, you get nice views of Ballymastocker Beach, over Portsalon Beach & the Fanad Peninsula.

Down there are crystal clear waters, which you can swim starting in June. People also surf, kayak and fish here, or just enjoy nice walks on the sandy beach in front of sand dunes that are home to rabbits and birds. That beach always shows up most beautiful lists. And Taylor Swift is been there! OMG! Also, it was a location for the movie “The Secret of Roan Inish,” a film grounded in local folklore of seals that can shed their skins to become human.

Nearby was the scene of the dramatic wreck of the HMS Saldanha, a small British ship in regular service in this area. She was on patrol in December of 1811 and got caught in a storm. The 36-gun frigate floundered into the bay and all 264 of her crew were killed, or died in the icy cold waters. Only a parrot, the captain’s bird, and a dog survived.

Right along the beach in the background is a fine little golf course. Who can play the game with a beach like that just off to the side? I’d be hooking and slicing every shot because I couldn’t keep my head down for the views.

If you swim out from the beach a brisk 2.4 mile swim would put you on the shore on the opposite side of the bay. But if you turned left you’d be in the North Atlantic.

We’re not swimming today, but we are seeing some more of these incredible views.

adventures / Friday / Ireland / video — Comments Off
20
Mar 26

From Ballymastocker Strand to Horn Head

We are in Letterkenny for two nights, because there is a lot to see in this area. There is a lot to see in every area of this beautiful country. The next time we come back we might be able to say we’ve seen 15 percent of it’s beauty, if we round up. We returned a wallet, we saw some beautiful places, and they’ll all get posts but, first, a little video overview of the day.

Let’s dive in!

adventures / history / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Mar 26

Beefan and Garveross

The problem with this part of the world is that just about everywhere you turn offers amazing views. Not every place can be a place. And so you have little moments like this, where you just round a bend see something like this. You just park in the middle of the quite road to take a picture and admire the view for a moment.

Up there is the Beefan and Garveross Mountain. The map shows six hours and I think we can see the Glen Head Signal Tower, another one of those Napoleonic era buildings designed to watch out for, and pass the word, that the French were coming. We didn’t go up to it, but it’s apparently a lovely hike. It is a two-story stone building with a commanding view of the ocean to the west and north-west, and two bays to the south.

They were really concerned about the French. And with good reason, when you think about what was going on at the earliest points of the 19th century. This map shows us that 81 of these watch towers were built, covering about three-quarters of Ireland’s coastline.

But if you don’t want to look at that map, have another look at this view. It’s a panorama, click to embiggen.

We journeyed on, stopping at a pub for dinner in a town we were passing through. They forgot about us for a while, or we did not understand the local custom of paying. We wound up being the last ones out of the place, including most of the employees. If a few more minutes had gone by I would have suggested the American custom of dining and dashing, which in this case would have been more like dining, waiting for 45 minutes, and then just walking out the door. And, if anyone magically appeared as we did so I was prepared to say, “Ahhhh, Tim is paying.”

Ever since I found that wallet I keep feeling for it in my pocket. Tim already lost this thing, and he’s getting it back tomorrow. I can’t lose it too.

Also, I explained my personal pocket ritual to my lovely bride. Seventeen years we’ll have been married this summer, more than 20 years together now, and I’ve never said this, and she’s never noticed it. But, when I leave from one place to go to somewhere else I pat down all of my pockets. Keys, wallet, phone, whatever. Just to make sure it is all there.

I think I’ll give that advice to Tim tomorrow, when he and his wife get his back.

Anyway, we paid. Tim did not pay. We left the pub and headed on to Letterkenny. This was a big long move, and I was driving us on some lonely roads. The route sort that went through the dark of a darkest night, looking for taillights and driving on the left. You can depend on the in-dash GPS, which I did. At precisely the moment where it seemed all was lost, when you might be driving off the land into the ocean that is most assuredly somewhere over … there … lights emerge right in front of you. And there was the hotel, and restaurant, and spa, and whatever else goes on here. It feels like the center of the community, and it was lit like an American car dealership.

We’ll be here for two nights, but Tim’s wallet will only be here the one … if I can find where I put it.

Kidding. It’s right here, right next to my wallet. I’ve checked on it 14 times.

adventures / Ireland / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Mar 26

Malainn Bhig

This is the spot where our amazing trip took a little turn for the unexpected. Nothing bad. Just … the tiniest diversion from the plan. It was not a setback, but an opportunity. A chance to do something unique for ourselves. But we’ll get to all of that.

While we were driving here, the GPS gave us some bad directions. We wound up in an old farmer’s driveway. He was there too, and he had a nice laugh with us, and a nice chat. The road just seemed to end on his plot. He said, no, it continues on, but told us we weren’t going far in our rental. I’m still not sure if he was insulting the sensibly fuel efficient car or the Americans. We chatted for a minute. He’d lived there is whole life, and probably several generations of his family could have said the same thing. Turn around, go back, take a left, then go over here, and you’ll be there. The place, he said, which was the last place God made, because he’d been saving up for something special.

And maybe that old man knew what he was talking about. Maybe he’s seen it all. Maybe he’s seen enough. Maybe he only had to see this place. Maybe he’s been out in those fields long enough to understand that what we see is always the last place God made, because he’d been saving up for something special.

And, in this case, that’s Malainn Bhig.

Just down from the village of the same name, Mahlainn Bhig is a horseshoe beach, protruding out as the westernmost part of land in the norther part of the country. It’s wonderfully secluded. The parking lot butts up to a farmer’s house and fields. Then you talk down a whole lot of stairs, to this beach that is surrounded on three sides by steep hills and cliffs.

She went down to touch the water, because you can never take the curiosity out of the girl. I love that for her. She said it was very cold. I’m not sure if that needed the firsthand experience. God made another perfect place, but that’s the Northern Atlantic out there, and I can connect the dots.

Above and behind us the sheep were going about their evening grazing, entirely unconcerned about what we were doing down below. You can just sort of see it in this photo, but those horizontal lines on the hillside are the sheep trails. One supposes they can come all the way down to the beach. But, when they realize it’s just sand, they probably head back up, and never come back again. Surely, every generation goes through this.

When you go down the steep stairs, you have to come back up them, and you don’t get the benefit of the switchbacks the sheep have made for themselves. They say there are 174 steps, and I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I counted a few more.

And it was back at the top, after we’d enjoyed a few quiet minutes on that lovely little beach, when the day took a little unexpected turn, because that’s where I found Tim’s wallet.

Tim is a man who lives in Washington state, he just turned 65 this year. And I know his address because I have his driver’s license, and his Medicare card, and his credit card, and his debit card. He’s surely going to need at least some of those in the future.

We came to learn a fair amount about Tim this evening, but how do you handle this, right there in the parking lot? My lovely bride looked him up on Facebook, but he’s one of those guys who hasn’t used the app in eight or nine years. I walked the little parking lot to see if there was anything else that maybe he dropped. No phone, no other important documents. We wrote him on Facebook, but who knows if that will ever be seen. The Yankee had the inspired idea to message his family members she found on Facebook. That was a good idea.

We considered leaving the wallet in the parking lot, a little leather Easter egg that he may never find. We could ship it to him when we got home. Worst case scenario, we could ~~buy ourselves dinner tonight~~ destroy these documents and Tim would just have to go back to the DMV and all of these other places to replace what he’d dropped. We’d know then that no one else was buying dinner on Tim.

As we thought about all of this, we stood there and enjoyed the sunset.

I like how the sun is dipping just into the little depression of the island there. A bit of Irish magic in this perfectly made place. On the island is the Rathlin O’Birne lighthouse. Built in 1846, and light in 1856, Rathlin O’Birne is about as spartan as they come. There were two keepers cottages and outhouses, and that’s about it. It’s even hard to get on the island. There is no landing place. It apparently requires a perfectly calm sea to get a person over there. And there’s a bit of unique history to that lighthouse. It is, since 1974, supposedly the world’s first nuclear powered lighthouse and the only one in Ireland.

This being Ireland and all, I shared a special Irish legend that I just made up right there on the spot. If you give someone a kiss just as the sun sets over the sea, in Ireland, you’re guaranteed to return one day. Got a smooch. We’re coming back.

About three hours later we heard from Tim’s wife. We’ve been making arrangements, and they’ll come to us tomorrow. I said, just tell them to come to our hotel. At least we know where that is, they can map it, and believe me, they’ll be blessed to do it for the favor we’re doing them.

But, first, there’s one more spot to see tonight, and Tim is going to buy us a big dinner.

Kidding.

adventures / history / Ireland / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Mar 26

Slieve League

This is up the way up the mountain, the name Sliabh Liag, which means mountain of stone pillars. Seems appropriate. We were given the option of walking or driving. Driving cost a few bucks, but it was worth it. It’s a single track up the mountain, and right over that rise is the Atlantic, and some of the most dramatic, and the second-highest sea cliffs in Europe.

This is a panorama. If you click the image it’ll open in another browser window, and you can see this just a bit bigger, but, still, not quite as impressive as what we saw. This tops out at 1,972 feet.

That’s the view from a place called Bunglass. A place we lingered for quite a long while. It was, as you can tell, worth it.

The writer, librarian, and naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger wrote about the “One Man’s Path,” which is here at Sliege League. Praeger called it one of the most remarkable walks to be found in Ireland. Thirty years prior, on the other side of the country, he conducted a survey of a small island and added 90 new species to the Irish flora and fauna and five of them were new to science.

If I added a bunch of new species to the books I would never stop thinking about that. I don’t know how he was able to enjoy the rest of his walks, but he was Irish, and he had places like this to see. I wonder if he saw this he thought, I should go to that little rock and see if that’s a different kind of moss. It could be my next new species.

Here’s the beginning of the walk, or the end. We went up just a tiny little way, but only for this view. Apparently it would take several hours to do the whole thing. Who needs that, when you’ve got this?

I’ve been wanting a picture like this — well, sort of like this — for 10 years. Almost got it. Got this close.

I like these stone steps. The rest of these photos are featuring those steps. Someone put them all there, and we don’t think about things like that enough, and so I thought about that on every sturdy step.

Though I don’t think I can photograph them very well.

But if you go up all of those stone steps, almost to the top of this hill, you’ll turn left, and then continue on that long walk, across the ridge line, with ever-more-grand views of the cliffs and the ocean.

Look at how the peat is growing right up to the rock steps, or probably more accurately, how the rock steps were cut into the peat. Someone had to make that decision too, probably. Or they followed a human or animal path. But suppose a foreman was out there, pointing and drawing and cutting a line. You’d like to think they agonized over that. I’d like to think that, anyway, because that’s a thing I’d agonize over. Whoever made that call, though, probably just wanted to get this done so they could get back in for dinner.

I wonder where the stone steps came from. Probably from the hillside through which we drove on the way up here. They must be well considered, at least a bit. You want stones to be flat on two sides, top and bottom. Surely they didn’t want to waste time on stone masonry here. They’re just steps, after all. So where, then, did the cast offs go?

This place figures, of course, into Ireland’s history and folklore. One of the largest Neolithic cemeteries in the Europe is nearby. An island just off this place holds the ruins of an early Celtic Christian monastery. If you walk along the top you can see an early monastic site and some of the ancient beehive huts, where monks sought solitude, spiritual connection, and help kept the craft of the written word alive.

I had no idea this was here. I didn’t plan the trip, or the day, and I had no idea this even existed. But I’m so glad we saw it. Glad we had the chance to linger here for an hour or so.

This is one of those places I’d come back to, specifically here, to linger, to see more, to see the same, and to find out what’s on the other side of that trail.