Exploring the Places No One is Talking About
Ireland has some beautiful national parks and we got the opportunity to visit one. Glenveagh National Park is in County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and it is free to visit. However, the park is out of the way a bit, in a wild and beautiful part of the country. Ireland does not have
Half of what we did in Derry was eat and it was all delicious. Our first stop was Soda & Scratch. This restaurant was suggested by Wilderness Ireland and honestly, it was probably one of my favorite meals. I tried the BBQ Chicken Tikka Salad and Keltin got the Lisdergan Butchers 6oz Marrow Aged Beef
From Bushmills we were headed to Lough Eske but we had a few stops to make along the way. We stopped in Colerane to pick up a new allen-wrench for the camera gear and a new shirt for Keltin – one of his ended up with a hole in it. I loved how walkable all
After exploring Rathlin Island we headed inland a bit to visit The Dark Hedges. The Dark Hedges are beautiful but they aren’t actually actually hedges, they are beech trees. Fans of Game of Thrones might recognize the King’s Road. The magnificent trees were planted in the eighteenth century by the Stuart family as a lead up
The second of our three guided tours with Wilderness Ireland was a boat trip out to Rathlin Island. This island has a history of being fought over by a variety of peoples and countries. We met out guide, Richard, in the port town of Ballycastle before making our way onto the boat, Aquaholics. Aquaholics was
Since we were staying at The Bushmills Inn they reached out directly to us to see if we wanted dinner reservations in the restaurant as they give guests the first priority. One thing we learned fairly quickly in Ireland is that they do things at a slower pace – including dinning. They don’t try and
Bushmills. This is the name of the town, of the inn, and of the distillery. No, I’m not sure which was named first. It was quite a change going from the big city of Belfast and a skyscraper hotel to the quant and comfortable Bushmills Inn. Bushmills was booked for us by Wilderness Ireland and
Ireland is ridiculously picturesque. There are places on the island where myth meets science and history. The tors on the hike up Slieve Binnian are one such example, stone warriors asleep and waiting to defend the isle. The Hill of Tara is another but the most memorable sight was the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
Part of the reason that I selected Wilderness Ireland as our travel company was because I could select trips that included guided hikes. Our first hike was in the Mourne Mountains in County Down. The hike tried to kill us, but it was worth it. I jest, we were jet lagged and it was a
Ireland is not necessarily known for its cuisine. However, that does not mean that we ate badly on this trip at all. While we did have quite a few toasties for lunch, here are some of our dinners. I did make it a point to try things that were different or unique to the area
McGee Travel Tales 