Downtime, Uptime: Northern Ireland, Days 9 and 10

We’re putting a couple of days together, because we scheduled ourselves a purposeful down day. Thursday was a day of lazy breakfast, strolling the grounds of the lovely place we’re staying, and generally just kicking up our heels. That might sound like a weird way to spend a day on a trip like this, but honestly that’s the reason we moved to Portugal in the first place. When the trip represents a huge investment of resources – not just money, but time off from work (and the opportunity cost of not doing other things with it) – every single day feels precious and requires worthy usage. This trip, on the other hand, was a spur of the moment jaunt to take advantage of a cheap air fare that Lisa found. We’ve kept it relatively inexpensive, and we can poke around the country with the comfort of knowing that, barring catastrophe, we’ll be back. So yeah, rather than run our way ragged, we built in a day to just recharge. Sharpen the saw, if you prefer. Anyway, that was Thursday.

Friday was another story.

The morning began with the breakfast buffet which is probably the best breakfast we’ve had access to in awhile (barring homemade, natch). Scrambled eggs in particular seem to be preferred on the soft/runny side in Europe (gross generalization, but that’s where we’re at to date) but these were firm without being overcooked. The Irish in the building may have been furious but I was delighted and that’s what matters. Besides, they eat baked beans in the AM, their opinion of breakfast options means little to me. (I kid because I love, Irish people.) Lisa had devised a really great, efficient itinerary for us and we hopped to it.

First stop was Clontygora Cairn, which has to be the largest court tomb we’ve ever seen, and (no research done here, but) has to be one of the largest there is – it is massive. Not only are the stones some of the biggest we’ve seen, the thing is largely intact (I smell a bit of restoration, but hopefully only a bit) and you can really get a sense of the thing. It is worth noting that during its active period it was probably covered with stone and earth – you didn’t see these standing rocks on the nearby hill, you saw a mound with a forecourt of some of these stones. It was also interesting because there were a couple of long lines of these big stones that were not a part of the court or the tomb. Amateur us decided that they were an alignment which, let’s be clear, we had learned about roughly four days ago. But no, they’re definitely an alignment. In fairness, I have no idea what distinguishes “an alignment” from “rocks that happen to be in a line”. Don’t wikipedia if for me, I enjoy the romance of learning in the field.

Short interstitial: have I mentioned lately the insanity of the roads? I don’t think I have, because I think we’re kind of used to it now. Here’s the thing: they are smol. Even tiny at times. They narrow from two lanes with a bare skinny shoulder, to two lanes with no shoulder, to “two lanes but if a car is coming you’re both putting scratch marks on the passenger side from rubbing the shrubbery” to “stop pretending, this is a one lane road and keep your eyes peeled.” We spend a not-insignificant portion of our day driving (and passenger-ing, they don’t get off easy) with intense concentration, trying to work the angles on some very sharp curves to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes it really does come down to “let’s go slow and hope that they see us, because I can’t see $%)#.” And yet I really wouldn’t change anything about it – this is the only way to see the thing we want to see, and aside from the fancy megaliths there’s just the gorgeous countryside scenery. It really is great… but also pants-wetting-inducing.

Anyhoo.

Our second stop was at a dolmen. If I have not mentioned before – I am suspicious of dolmens. They are just so fricking odd-looking, and also I can’t shake the idea that they were put there recently to gin up tourism. Except nobody goes to these things. Ok, not nobody, but if you ran the coffee concession at one of these dolmen sites you’d starve once your pastry case ran dry. That said… this dolmen got me. I was in the right mood or something, but I really dug it. It’s officially “Goward Dolmen” but it has been known in the area as “Pat Kearney’s Big Rock” since at least the early 1800s. Nobody remembers who Pat Kearney is, but they know this is his big rock. And fair’s fair, it is a big rock:

I do love these old bits of information, kind of like the Holestone that we wrote about earlier. Researchers show up a couple hundred years ago and they dig up stories that are ensconced as lore by that time. Which means, to my mind at least, that the lore is way, way older than that. Reminds me of the Aboriginal stories about the meteor strike that seem to be 10,000 years old. A tale for another time.

We had a couple of misfires today – sites on the property that have “No Trespassing” signs, for example. I’m not sure how that interacts with Irish law on historical locations, but we aren’t prepared to litigate any such thing, so we move along. Another site didn’t seem to be there, which probably means we couldn’t find it in the underbrush or was way deeper into the farmland than we were prepared to search. We have limits, after all. Not to worry, our last stop was at Tollymore Forest Park, which has been a forest for… well, forever, but was established as a public park in 1955; getting in was not an issue. We were there for some very lovely photo opportunities that Lisa had discovered, but also because the place is just plain gorgeous. Sadly, the water level was so low in the river that the photo ops, which include water swirling around stepping stones, for example, that it just wasn’t worth taking a photo. The park was still lovely, though, and since we hadn’t been on any significant walks since we left Derry it was nice to just stretch our legs for a bit.

We scooted back to the hotel to freshen up and then hit an early reservation at The Spotted Dog. It’s a bistro with upscaled food that gave us Peyrassol vibes. This only means something if you knew us in Seattle, but trust me when I say it’s high praise coming from us. We had some truly spectacular people watching that will probably haunt us for a long time, a really good meal, and a full-tummied drive back to the hotel for a pack-up and a settle down. Tomorrow brings the driving portion of our trip to an end: a last run through some old sites, then dropping the car in Belfast to enter into the denouement of our excursion. (lah dee dah!) And with that, we bid you all good night until the morrow.